Green Finch and Linnet Bird
by SwissFreakingCheese
Summary: In the wake of the death of Abigail Hobbs, Hannibal finds himself wanting to rebuild the bridge that burned the night she died. Hannibal has built walls for others to climb his whole life. Now that Will has built a wall around himself, Hannibal's struggle to knock it down changes things irrevocably for both of them. (On brief hiatus until August 18th)
1. Aligot

**Full Summary: **_In the wake of the death of Abigail Hobbs, Hannibal finds himself wanting to rebuild the bridge that burned the night she died. Two like minds does not always mean two like reactions; both men struggle to heal from the death and from the betrayal. __Hannibal has built walls for others to climb his whole life. Now that Will has built a wall around himself, Hannibal's fight to knock it down changes things irrevocably for both of them. Will contain dark and mature themes._

**Author's Note: **_Rated M for dark themes including character death, murder and cannibalism as well as language and sex (M/M, implied and written out). Story will update every Sunday._

_These characters belong to NBC's Hannibal, and I make no profit by writing of them...although I would **love** it if you'd review!_

_Also, this first chapter has very sparse dialogue. All future chapters will have plenty of it._

* * *

Doctor Lecter awoke with a jolting, disturbed start.

The very first awareness that the psychiatrist noted was that he felt slick; there was an odd, slimy sensation that he could feel all over his skin. Hannibal raised a hand to his forehead, noting the way his pajama sleeve stuck to his arm, and discovered that his face and hair were dampened with sweat.

Frowning, he propped himself up against the headboard, and it was by this that he made his second observation, much more alarming than the first. He was incredibly dizzy.

Pressing a hand to the side of his head, Hannibal ran three fingers into his wet hair and closed his ecru eyes for a moment. It took only a brief moment to assimilate that the cause for the dizziness was not only a headache and an inexplicably warm body but a bizarre feeling in his stomach. There was a fluttering, yet also vice-like sensation in his belly, as if his stomach was tightening shakily. Hannibal moved the hand from his head to his belly and discovered that was exactly what it felt like. The man gave a slight frown; he was starving. The issue with that was quite a bit broader than simply getting up and cooking, too.

The previous evening's dinner was supposed to consist primarily of a choice cut; a very fresh bit of meat. A kidney. Hannibal's taste for the organ was one he did not share with most of those who he had over for dinner, and so he was quite used to dressing and arranging the meat to suit the palettes of his guests, a rather time-consuming work. This particular evening, however, was his and his alone to enjoy, and so it had been a clear choice which of the meats he'd prepare himself to eat. He had found, to his shock, that upon laying that bit of meat on the butcher's block as so many other slabs before it, that he could not lower the knife and begin to cut it. Hannibal had assumed that perhaps he just wasn't feeling well, perhaps his appetite was delayed. And so the doctor had waited nearly three hours and then returned to his cooking, once again laying out the organ and once again finding he could not cook it.

This morning, he hoped, would bring some sort of finale to the situation. Hannibal was very hungry, and perhaps his fierce appetite would be able to drown out whatever had gotten in to him, whatever had convinced him he did not want to begin to prepare his favorite variation of meat. Drawing himself up from his bed, Hannibal Lecter walked down the oaken staircase and to the large kitchen which was the centerpiece of the first floor. The man paused at the sink, turning on the faucet to cleanse his hands. Steeling himself, the man cast a downward glance into the sink and found it to be soothingly empty save for a few suds around the rim of the drain. In spite of the fact that the occurrence of the ear in the sink had not happened in his own home, he considered it every time he was in his kitchen...

_"She didn't come back with me," Will told him, body and words shaking from the cold winter weather. _

_Hannibal winced at the words, not only because he could sense the agony in Will's stare but because he knew exactly where the girl in question was. Of course, there was no way he could confide that bit of information to Will. Not now, if ever._

_So instead, he extended his hand to his patient; Will crushed the doctor's finger's like a vice, as if holding on tight enough would remove the irrevocable, erase what both men knew to be true..._

_Several minutes later, Hannibal was standing over Will's kitchen sink, gazing at a bizarre and rather repulsing mixture of what appeared to be both blood and vomit...but that was not what captured the psychiatrist's full attention._

_No, what snared Hannibal's focus, capturing it like a steel trap, was the presence of a human ear in the sink. _

Abigail's death had been quite unsettling for all those involved in her new life; from the FBI to the hospital staff to Will Graham and to Hannibal himself. For the latter, it was a shock and _not_ a shock.

Following his revelation to the girl about having taken more lives than her father had done, Hannibal's bond with Abigail was sealed in a way that he could not explain. It was parental on one hand; he wanted the best for her, to guide and safeguard her. On the other it was a villainous companionship; an unspoken allegiance between two killers solidified by admission. Two killers who knew the secrets of one another. A rather dangerous mix, akin to electricity and water, gunpowder and a leaping flame.

Of course, that simply would not do.

Two killers were now under a roof together. And a peaceful coexistence between the two, no matter the circumstance, no matter the bond, was no longer a permanent possibility. No, the removal of one, in one way or another, was certainly imminent. It was the natural order of things, an absolute truth. Were a lion and a honey badger caged together, in the end only one of them would survive. Despite not being natural enemies of one another, inevitably they would begin to grow hungry. But rather than work together on a solution to escape, perhaps by combining their strengths, they would resort not to teamwork but execution. One animal would be slain. And the other would walk free. Such was the way of nature. And such was the way of Abigail and Doctor Lecter.

Abigail was not made to be the enemy of Hannibal. And in truth, she was not his enemy. They were two very different brands of killers. One was a former accessory whose desperation to save herself from an assailant had pushed her to violent extremes. The other, a meticulous, calculating, and, when it came to the killing of others, emotionless mass murderer. And so, while vastly different from one another, they boiled down to the same; they had taken lives. It was by that sinister truth that the need to remove the threat of Abigail Hobbs was born.

Abigail and Hannibal's knowledge of the deeds of one another had placed Hannibal in a situation he had always disliked, not unlike the one he had been in with Tobias several weeks prior; someone had gotten close enough to know what we was hiding. He had not, initially, wanted to kill the man. However, the string musician's eyewitness to his actions had given Hannibal no real choice. Tobias posed a very serious threat to his secrecy, his liberty, his very livelihood. It was natural, then, that Hannibal would take those things from Tobias. Permanently.

There was something about Abigail that made her an even greater danger to Hannibal and his secrets; her connections. Abigail had formed bonds with two women, Alana Bloom and Freddie Lounds, within which she confided much of her hopes, fears, and secrets (the darker ones, of course, had been reserved for Hannibal). Her association with these women made it incredibly likely that she'd spill the beans. And there was only one surefire way to be sure that wouldn't happen...

It had been so much more than that for Hannibal, too. It had been about something entirely different.

Two years ago, Hannibal became the weekly therapist for a sixty-something woman named Miss DeTray. Never married, no offspring. Well, technically none anyway. Hannibal recalled that the woman owned at least ten cats, which she had referred to as her 'fluffy children.' Hannibal had asked her during one of their sessions what she feared most, and her response surprised him. It was not dying, not loneliness, not blood or heights or fire. (He'd had her pegged as an arachnophobe prior to asking the question.) No, it was not the sort of fear he was used to. She had answered instantly,

"Having to put one of my cats to sleep."

And she had proceeded to cry for nearly all the remainder of her appointment. The idea of euthanasia, of killing someone or something for it's own good, had stuck with Hannibal for a long time. He had mulled it over for a while after his precise, swift killing of Franklin. Under what circumstances was euthanasia necessary? After a long while pondering that, he had though of a few. Suffering. Pain. Despair. Illness.

Abigail Hobbs had certainly been suffering. After the death of her father, Garrett Jacob Hobbs, or as he was notoriously labeled, the Minnesota Shrike, her downfall began- a swirling darkness, a painful crumbling. Her pain was emotional, certainly; having lost her mother and her father within a ten minute period, but it was physical. She had been left with a quite literal scar from the harrowing incident. Hannibal recalled several instances where he had been able to hear her crying from the next room, but for the most part she was stiff and silent on matters around him. She did not want to discuss the murder she'd committed, did not want to discuss her father. Abigail Hobbs was sick, too, but not in the traditional sense. She was homesick, she was heartsick, and occasionally, Abigail would wake up from her nightmares so haunted she'd throw up and Hannibal would have to clean it out of the carpet. Something had cracked inside of her; something deep, primal, and excruciating. However, Abigail had kept those grievances as separate from her relationship with Hannibal as she could, keeping things impersonal in the midst of an intensely personal falling apart.

And so the fate of Abigail Hobbs was sealed.

Her death had been simple, really, far less theatric than its predecessors. Hannibal had arrived to the cabin where she and Will were staying in Minnesota. As she had slept, Hannibal had pressed a pillow to her face until the fight her limbs put up ceased; she never saw the face of her killer, but if she had, perhaps she would have fought just a little bit harder. He death had been much less agonizing than those typical of Hannibal Lecter.

It was, after all, a mercy killing.

It was what happened posthumously that was more characteristic of the man who took her life. She was carried out into the thick of the woods, a light burden in the doctor's arms. In addition to Abigail, Hannibal carried with him a satchel containing a knife, a plastic bag, and a sponge. He laid her upon a snowy patch of earth, her petite hands unfeeling of the chilled soil she laid upon. In those moments, she looked as if she may still be sleeping, as if her life had not just been stolen from her by one of the very men sworn to nurture it.

Abigail was stripped of her nightgown directly before a butcher knife was plunged to the hilt at the base of her neck and dragged down to her navel with surgical straightness and barbarian brutality. The skin around the wound was peeled back, a single organ stolen from her body, and then, the final touch.

There was only one person Hannibal could think of who was close enough to Abigail Hobbs to be able to commit an act so personal, only one person unstable enough to be believed as the killer, not just by law enforcement but by the man himself...

Hannibal sliced her ear off.

The execution was much more sloppy this time, much less precise. Her death had been recent enough for blood to still flow from the wound, and so the gaping hole at the side of Abigail's head was met by the sponge. As he held the object to her once troubled skull, he was reminded of their meeting, wherein he'd held her neck like a high note, trying to keep the blood inside her body. Now, though, Hannibal was pulling it from her. He left the sponge there until it was positively saturated with the oozing, red fluid. The ear, the organ, and the sponge, all of which glistened morbidly in the dusky light of the moon, were sealed away in the plastic bag before Hannibal hid her body. Abigail received a proper burial; after bringing the satchel with some of Abigail's remains back to her father's old cabin, he returned to her body and buried her, six feet underground.

Then it was just a matter of waiting.

When Will awoke that morning, Hannibal saw a very familiar look in his cerulean eyes. They were glazed with a void her could not fully explain; Will Graham was not really present in that moment. There was no sense speaking to him, Hannibal knew, because there was no way Will would recall a thing he said...or did. He realized that later bit with devilish delight. Hannibal had already intended to pin the crime on Will, but now that Will was utterly detached from the present...

It would be the easiest double-cross that Doctor Lecter had ever pulled off.

Hannibal fed the ear to Will. To his surprise, Will was so removed from the present moment that he offered no question to the offering...nor did he bother chewing it. Hannibal ran Will's palms through the organ and the sponge, making sure they were bloodied sufficiently, and then accompanied Will back home, being sure to have Will remain barefooted as often as possible before finally tucking the man back into his own bed. The sponge came in handy then; Hannibal used the blood that remained within the porous object to create a red, streaky mess in the kitchen before leaving Will to wake up to the planted disaster in his home. All that remained now was the organ.

Her death had been a shock and not a shock. It wasn't a shock because it was his doing; it was a shock because for the first time, it stuck with him. However, at it's core a mercy killing was still just another means of killing, and so it was only natural that the stolen organ would make it's way in to dinner soon.

In spite of that, though, the killing had been the most personal he'd done in a long time, and as Hannibal sat in his kitchen, looking down at the uncooked kidney, he once again found he could not bring himself to cook it.


	2. Tourte Lorraine

**Author's Note: **_Thanks for the follows and the favorites! It is a real honor, and I appreciate it so truly. A few quick announcements: this story is now available on AO3 under the same name; you can read it here: archiveofourown/works/868547_

_Also, as promised, this chapter has much more dialogue...but that does not mean it's necessarily a cakewalk._

_As usual, characters are property of NBC's Hannibal, and while I don't make money by writing of them, I would love it if you'd review! Enjoy!_

* * *

"One, two, three..."

Will Graham lay flat on his back, limpid blue gaze upon the bland, concrete ceiling. He had done this many times during his stay in prison. He was counting the ridges and cracks in the surface, announcing the amount he found to no one in particular.

Upon his arrest nearly a month prior, Will had been disappointed, but not entirely surprised, to find that separation from his career-and of course his former psychiatrist-had done very little to soothe his weary head. Will had gone in to prison like a broken dam; his fragile mental state having busted beneath the weight of life around him. Now that he was in prison, that pressure had mostly ebbed away...but being trapped in small confines, no one could reply to the sound of his voice, and so the area around him seemed to have flooded with the water once trapped in his mental dam, leaving him to drown instead.

"Four, five, six..."

One of his favorite parts about counting the ceiling's imperfections was the fact that there was never a change. It was a constant, something predictable. For a man as unstable as Will, things that never changed were a rare and blessed find. There was, oddly enough, another one of such constants in the room. It lay in the shadowed space under him, in fact.

"Seven, eight, nine..."

Will absently reached beneath the small spring bed he rested upon, temporarily abandoning his count. He already knew the answer; Will counted at least once a day, and he had recited it when he had awoken that morning, too; eighteen. His calloused palm skimmed the dusty surface beneath his bed before his fingers reached their prize; a single sheet of notebook paper. He immediately brought the page up, propping himself up on his pillow, drinking in every detail of it.

The letter had been folded rather crisply in to thirds, but due to the amount of instances that Will read it, hands smoothing over it's yellow surface, it now lay quite flat. It was adorned with a handwriting so distinctly Alana Bloom's that Will chuckled over it nearly every time he scanned it. It was slanted and precise but also curled and vaguely feminine. It was _her._ Will began to read her words again; he could almost hear Alana's voice; a friendly, warm cadence, as he did so.

'_Dear Will_,' read the letter,

'_I know it's silly to wonder how you must be doing. You must be...' _

The word 'upset' was written but then crossed out, followed by 'lonely,' which was also crossed out. The word Alana finally chose was _'exhausted. I can only imagine. _

_There are a lot of things that I would like to ask you about. Most of them I will never ask. Perhaps someday, when we are on the same sides of the bars, we can discuss them together. If it is any solace to you,' _

Will paused his reading for a moment, biting his lower lip to brace himself for the words he knew were coming; _'I do not doubt your innocence, Will.' _An acrid lump of unshed tears formed in Will's throat. Alana was perhaps the only person in the world-including himself sometimes-who did not think he had murdered Abigail Hobbs. He had to swallow once or twice to regain his composure over that before continuing.

_'I know things are fragile now for you-it's not been easy at work either. Jack has been working me quite hard; I've been doing detailed psychoanalytic profiles on everyone in the FBI, trying to detect instability so it can be "snuffed out," as he says. I know exactly why he's doing it, too, and every time I am made to study a member of the Science Squad or EMT, all I can wonder is if I would have discovered anything in your own mind. And I can hardly live with myself knowing I may well have missed it when it mattered most.'_

"I'm sorry," Will whispered in a broken voice to no one in particular, moving his thumb over the sentence, as if she could feel it, as if she could be provided with some consolation from the fleeting gesture.

_'But here is what you must know. No matter what happens with you, inside your head or out, you have a home with me. You always will._

_Speaking of home-the dogs are well. We go for walks as often as we can. Winston misses you very much. I'll be honest, initially I was not too charmed by the idea of not one but seven animals running rampant in my home. But now that we have all adjusted to our new living situation, I am beginning to see what you meant when you described them as your "dog family."'_

Beneath this remark was a photograph of his dogs chasing one another through Alana's yard, a light snow dusting the grass like a thin, frosty sheet.

_'We look forward to seeing you again as soon as we can._

_Love,'_

Beneath this, Alana had written in very sloppy handwriting the names of his dogs, as if they had written their names themselves. Her own name, however, was written in that remarkably distinct penmanship of hers.

_'Winston, Charlie, Sadie, Jeeter, Bruce, Daisy, Cora, and Alana.'_

Will gazed fondly at the sheet he held in his hands, drinking in every single detail of it. It was his only link to the world around him; he was only dimly aware of the time of day, let alone what occurred around him. He was, in fact, about to read over the letter a second time when he became aware of the sound of shoes clicking on the floor.

Will's eyes narrowed in a contemplative glare. He knew those taps, that patten of footfalls. He knew exactly to whom they belonged, too...he either couldn't or wouldn't believe it.

The sound of an approaching man grew louder, and Will turned his back to the noise, trying to drown it out, trying to convince himself that he was only hearing things.. Surely, _surely_, he was mistaken. He hoped, with every particle of him, that he was wrong...but he knew he wasn't. He closed his eyes, hoping to erase the truth, hoping to remove the fact that Hannibal Lecter was ambling through the dimly lit hallway.

The sound stopped.

Almost a full minute of chilling silence passed. Will was painfully aware of the man's gaze on his back, and he imagined the doctor studying him, looking for parts that remained unbroken; he was not at all incorrect in this assumption, either. Hannibal stood, arms crossed, before the bars, gazing upon Will Graham with an expression akin to a scientist looking over tables of data.

"Hello, Will."

Will winced, the words hitting his back like a mighty slap. He bit his lip, keeping his gaze trained on the wall.

"I suppose you are wondering why I am here," Hannibal began, stretching his neck in an attempt to see Will's expression. While he was unsuccessful in that endeavor, he did note Will's angel bones becoming more pronounced, as if the man's hugging himself would shield him from his former therapist. Bearing that in mind, the psychiatrist in question chose his next words very carefully.

"I was thinking about Abigail a couple days ago," he began, "Do you miss her, Will?"

If at all possible, Will shielded himself from Hannibal even more, like a turtle in the shell.

"I do, too."

In a last ditch attempt to grab on to something stable, Will jerked his head and torso to the side to provide himself with a better view of the concrete ceiling.

"One, two, three..."

Hannibal gave a disappointed cluck of his tongue. "You are being awfully rude, Mr. Graham," he remarked, watching Will intently, "I came here to speak with you. Was I incorrect in assuming we could still talk to one another like adults?"

Rather than answer that question, Will replied with, "Four, five, six..."

Hannibal took a step closer, so that his foot was against the base of one of the bars. "I suppose I was, then. Fortunately for you, I would still be delighted to hold a conversation with you."

"Seven, eight, nine," Will spat out rather angrily in response.

"Will," Hannibal admonished him, "if you are looking for me to apologize to you than you are going to be waiting for a very long time. Abigail Hobbs' death, while inevitable, was premature. But it cannot be helped. It has happened." Hannibal paused, waiting for Will's voice. He was expecting the man to continue counting, half-hoping he would give an intelligent reply.

He received neither.

Hannibal sighed, a long, throaty noise that was the product of restlessness. Formalities aside, he had his reasons for coming to see Will Graham today. "I cannot apologize for the past, Will. It won't change anything."  
After three attempts to do so, Hannibal found himself unable to cook the kidney. Perhaps the owner and him were too close for such a thing? No, he'd decided after disposing of the raw organ. He had ended the lives of so many in the course of his livelihood that oftentimes he would cook meat and be uncertain to what-or whom-it belonged. There was a ghost attached to that kidney...and not that of Abigail Hobbs, either. Whenever Abigail entered Hannibal's mind, she was accompanied nearly without fail by Will.

The renowned psychiatrist had many people with whom he was social, certainly, but none of them, not one, were people he felt any mutual bond with. That is until he met Will. The man was the first person Hannibal found himself feeling attached to; he was the first person Hannibal felt like doing things for that did not have anything in them for him, the first person he felt he'd sincerely grieve should he pass. Will was the first person he'd thought about discussing life with; sharing the things that made him laugh or grow angry, and the first person whose joys and grievances really mattered. Simply put, Will Graham was the first person truly worthy of the companionship of Hannibal Lecter. His first true friend.

That kidney, that lone bit of stolen meat, had teemed with the presence of both Abigail and Will. It was almost as if the meat was still alive, and he had never been one to consume anything as it lived. And so, he had not. After disposing of it, though, Hannibal found that his friend's presence in his mind had not left like the meat had. No, it loomed like a doting parent in the doorway; silent but still utterly irremovable. Hannibal wanted to express that to Will, wanted to tell him that he had come to visit because there was something in his heart-he wasn't sure what-that was attached to him, was calling out for his presence. Hannibal wanted to say _'You left a mark on me. You took my wet cement mind and pressed your palms to it, and now you are there, a permanent part of me.'_ Instead, though, he said, "Sometimes you arrive uncalled for in my mind, Will. I figured I'd return the favor."

A pause.

"Ten, eleven, twelve..."

Hannibal curled his right hand into a tight fist. A very familiar sensation washed over the doctor; rage. He wanted to pull the bars apart, he wanted to kick at the former special agent, wanted to attack him until he said something to him other than numbers...he wanted Will to speak.

It hit Hannibal then, with percussive force, that it was _his_ doing.

Of course Will was not going to speak to him. What man would, after having been placed in jail, blamed for a series of crimes he did not commit, put his trust for the second time in someone who had betrayed him so seriously? Will may have not always been the most stable of men, certainly, but he was not naive...or stupid, for that matter. If his trust had been difficult to obtain before, it would be nearly impossible to get a second time. Hannibal was surprised he hadn't thought of it before. Then again, he so rarely viewed a circumstance as his fault that it was perhaps surprising he'd even thought of it at all. He mentally congratulated himself, once again, for his ingenuity.

Hannibal became aware of it then, the distant, glazed look in Will's cerulean gaze. He even _smelled_ as if he was drowning. He could not stop himself then; he blurted the man's name aloud, as if pushing it off his lips would save the man. The force, the urgency, and almost...dare he say it...desperation, in Hannibal's voice startled Will, nearly enough for him to finally look upon Doctor Lecter.

Almost.

"Thirteen, fourteen, fift-"

"Will!" Hannibal snapped, repeating the man's name angrily, cutting off the sounds of him counting. "Stop that. Stop that this instant!"

Hannibal sighed again, but Will did not miss the difference between this noise and the first. This one was almost relenting, as if Hannibal was releasing anger itself from his lungs.

"Will," Hannibal said again, much more calmly, "I...I want...I want to help you, Will-"

"_**No**_." Will snapped, his tone so livid, so full of anger, that the doctor fell silent.

Hannibal had steeled himself, ready to hear him reply with numbers again, seemingly ignoring his speech. He had not expected Will to say anything at all, really. And he had certainly not expected that the reply would _sting_.

"Will," Hannibal began again. However, whatever he had intended to say never fell on Will's ears; in fact, it never even left the psychiatrist's tongue. He was entirely lost for words.

Pivoting on his heel, Hannibal turned his back on his patient.

For the second time that, the noise of Hannibal's footfalls filled the hallway. Will listened to them growing more distant, a cold, dead feeling traveling through his veins in the wake of Hannibal's visit. He could feel himself spiraling, growing dizzy despite having barely moved in several hours. He wanted to cry, wanted to vomit...anything to expel whatever awful feeling had settled in his core.

Hannibal walked very slowly, half expecting and half hoping that Will would speak to him, tell him to come back... Hannibal knew what had to be done. In order to help Will, he had to somehow erase the hurt, and there was only one way to do that now. Hannibal was no time-turner, certainly, but he could take it back, could undo what had been done, by getting Will out of the cell where he'd spent so much time stewing in the muddles of his mind. The doctor made eye contact with a guard as he neared the door, a fleeting glance that carried monumental significance. Hannibal knew in that instant what had to be done.

As his hand curled around the doorknob that would take him out of the corridor Will inhabited, a voice hit his back. It was crackly, as if the speaker were fighting a losing battle against tears.

"Sixteen, seventeen, eighteen."


	3. Coq au Vin

**Author's Note:** _Yes, I do still plan on posting every Sunday. This chapter is a bit early because tomorrow I'll be rather busy all day.__  
_

_Be warned: this chapter contains some gore, although it's none more extreme than seen on the show. While this story is eventual Hannigram, this chapter features a good smattering of Willana friendship._

_As usual, I do not own the show or the characters, and while I make no profit by writing of them, I'd love it if you'd review!_

* * *

"_Will!" a young woman screamed._

_Will stood a few feet away from the scene, watching a girl claw at a pair of outstretched, toned forearms. The long strands of the girl's hair were tousled from the rest she'd just been disturbed from, as well as the struggle for her life she was in. There were two large hands pinning her down to the bed by the throat; the figure responsible was shadowy, not recognizable._

_She called out to him a second time, head lashing out to the side. Her henna-colored tendrils whipped about as she made panicked eye contact with Will._

"_Help me!"_

_Will gasped. He knew that cry, those eyes, that hair. _

"_Abigail!" he cried, extending his arm to her. He made a move to run to her side, but found that his feet would not obey him; they remained in place, as if bolted to the floor. His eyes became trained on hers, and he took in the horror in them with a hopeless that was nothing shot of agonizing. Abigail opened her mouth, whether to scream or to cry out for him again he never would discover because the hands around her throat released her, only to seize her pillow and smother her._

_An instant later, Will was standing out deep in the heart of the woods. The location seemed vaguely familiar, but he couldn't put a name to it. There was a dusting of snow on the ground, and more of it fell onto his bare arm. To Will's surprise, rather than melt, the flakes of snow remained perfectly intact. He was in the process of trying to grasp why that could be when he saw a mass in the snow. _

_This time, he found himself able to approach it, but the instant he recognized her still form his feet again mutinied against him and planted themselves firmly in place, refusing to take another step._

"_Abigail?"_

_She did not respond; she merely looked up at the branches she could not see, unaware of the man who was sworn to protect her standing over her petite frame. Will steeled himself, inhaling and exhaling slowly, before looking the girl in the face._

_The cerulean eyes found the icy blue, but there was really nothing to see. There was no light, no energy, no emotion, nothing, in her eyes. Abigail Hobbs was dead. He wanted to smooth reassuring hands over her hair, wanted collect her in his arms, wanted to hold her against his chest and cradle her there, as if he could wake her up, as if he could love Abigail enough to make her heart begin to pulsate again. But he could not wake her, he could not put breath back into her lungs. In fact, he couldn't even hold her, because his arms had followed the way of his feet and frozen in place. _

_The sight of something glistening in the night took Will's attention away from the glassy look Abigail wore. Her mysterious killer, it seemed, wasn't done with her yet. _

_The man flourished a knife and held it at arm's length over the lifeless body. Will was about to scream at him, to ask his identity and to demand he not further harm Abigail Hobbs, but the second his jaw opened to raise the inquiry, the snow that had collected over his body spread over his form and became ice, encasing him in a frigid, colorless armor that restricted him from the girl. Her killer brought the knife down and buried it in the center of her chest and..._

_She screamed. _

_Screamed? _

_Abigail was dead. There was no life in her veins, no oxygen in her body. She __**couldn't**__ have screamed..._

Will's eyes flew open, but the nightmare did not end when his sleep did. The dimly lit hallway he inhabited was a scene out of Hell; a morbid painting the likes of which Will had not seen since his investigation of the Chesapeake Ripper. The two guards assigned to the corridor that Will inhabited were dead.

The very instant that Will realized that, he spring to his feet and pushed his glasses in to place for a closer inspection of the bloodied area.

One of the guards, a stocky man in his mid-thirties, had a steel arrow running through his torso that appeared to have entered his body though one shoulder, traveled through his heart, and exited via his other shoulder. The very tip of the weapon was visible out of his right shoulder, and Will noted no other wounds, save for bruised knuckles, as if his killer had slain him solely with the arrow. A slow, excruciating death. His arms sported large bloodstains so fresh that they glinted a bit in the florescent light.

The other victim, whom Will then assumed had given the scream cry he'd dreamt of, was mounted on the wall. His head was tilted back, a long dagger buried to the hilt in the roof of his mouth. The other end of the rapier, Will considered, was likely wedged into one of the slim cracks in the wall considering that the man was hanging there, jaw unhinged, upon the cobblestone. Blood filled the guard's mouth, and it dripped down from there, soiling the clothes he wore. And then Will saw him; a third guard, this one alive, being dragged firmly by the wrist to the hallway where the two dead bodies remained by another man.

Will wanted to shout out his name, demand to know why he had come back, plead him for answers... but he couldn't even open his jaw. He lurched back down into a normal sleeping position and turned his back on the men, hoping, praying, they may think he had slept through the whole ordeal.

"What an unfortunate fate," mused Hannibal, tone silky and almost nonchalant, as if he were discussing weather with the guard. Will could have _sworn_ he heard the guard blanch.

"Now listen closely," he continued, "as I will only say this once and I will not repeat it. Are you listening?"

There was a pause, which Will took to mean that the guard was nodding.

"These two men died in an electrical explosion. They are to be cremated and the ashes are to be given to their families."

The guard replied in a stammer. "B-but...you-"

"No. You and I know what became of these two. And I suppose he-" Hannibal paused for a moment and Will winced; Hannibal must be gesticulating at him, "will find out soon enough. Do as I have asked, as there are more weapons where those two came from and I would prefer to not waste another one."

The guard gulped. "Yes...of course, of course..."

"Keys."

There was a tinkling of metal...the sound of approaching feet...and then his cell was being opened.

Will's blood became heavy; a dense, leaden dread in his veins. There were no longer any bars to separate him from the man who had held his very psyche underwater while stressing the importance of breathing. The eerie silence was pierced only by the sound of Hannibal approaching him. Will had never felt smaller than he did in those moments. It was as if he was a mouse being stared down by a cobra; cold, deceiving, lethal.

"Will."

There was no more avoiding Hannibal. The man had him quite literally cornered. He had no idea what would great him-a gun, a knife, an apology? when he turned to face the doctor for the first time in over a month.

There he stood, in all the same poise as Will recalled. Hannibal's suit-coat was dusted with a bit of dirt and his normally meticulous hairstyle had come a bit undone from the deadly fight he'd had with Will's guards. But there he stood, with dignity, with class, and with two hands glittering with blood not his own.

He extended one of these to Will.

Will nearly fell upon the bed. He was dizzy with shock and horror and yet oddly numb from it at the same time.

"Come," Hannibal remarked, not asking but telling. Will had no say in this matter, and even if he did, the former agent had no idea what he'd do with that liberty. He extended a clammy palm and gripped three of Hannibal's fingers like a vice.

The next thing Will knew, he was sitting on an oaken, hardwood floor, gaze locked on a distant painting and head swimming. He raised a palm to his skull, blearily trying to make sense of what had just happened to him. There was a void in his day; a large blank space which he could not recall, and the events immediately beforehand were like a book of smudged ink; tidbits of the barely comprehensible swallowed in sea of lost ideas.

"Where am I?" Will wondered aloud.

No sooner had he asked that, though, than he realized. He knew these floors, he had walked them so many times in the last few months that he was surprised he didn't recognize them before.

"No," he gasped to no one in particular, voice rising in alarm. He tried to leap to his feet to make a break for it while he still could, but they slid out from under him so that he landed firmly on his backside. Will's skin had taken on a ghostly pallor and there was a filmy coat of sweat over him, making the dried blood on his right hand even more visible. He had grabbed on to a bloodied hand, he remembered that, but he'd had no idea where that hand had lead him to... Scooting backwards, he absorbed all the details in the room and grew more and more panicked with each one he recognized.

"No, no, no, no..."

Hannibal strode into the room, expression placid. "Good evening, Will."

Will gasped, once again trying to jump to his feet. He was partially successful this time but in the process his back smacked against a cabinet and nearly knocked down a display of plates. Will crumpled back to the floor, cringing slightly in the pain of the blow, now positively panting in shock and utter terror.

"Did you bring me here?" he cried.

Hannibal gave slight nod.

"Why'd you do that? Who the hell do you think you _are_?!"

Hannibal deftly crossed his arms. Rather than answer that, he chose to inform him: "You're safe now."

Will stared up at him, eyes wild with fear and fury. "I don't _feel _safe. How did you-why did you...?"

"You are not as special as you think, Will," Hannibal remarked simply. "We are all motivated by fear."

"What does that have anything to do with-"

"You can convince people to do remarkable things for you if you show them dire enough consequences," the doctor cut across, explaining himself mildly.

"What did you do?" Will asked, more tentatively than he had done before, afraid to hear the answer.

There was, however, no reply from Hannibal, only a simple stare.

Will asked him again, this time asserting much more force despite being situated on the floor. "What did you do?!"

Hannibal's body lowered as he came to a crouching position before Will. He reached out, trying to put a hand on Will's shoulder, whether to soothe or manipulate him it was impossible to tell. Will pushed the hand away. "Don't touch me," he snapped bitterly through gritted teeth.

"You saw the guards," Hannibal answered him. "The first one, the one on the wall, was the only one whom I entered the building with the intention to kill. I was hoping to startle the other two into disposing of his body, but the second man seemed to want a fight. Quite admirable of him, really, but as you saw he was not successful in that endeavor."

Will gaped at Hannibal. "So you...disposed of...the guards, and then..."

"You began to seize a bit, I'm afraid," began Hannibal, "lost time for a few hours. The prison staff has been given detailed instructions."

"Pertaining to...?"

"Pertaining to you."

"Me?"

Hannibal cocked an eyebrow. "Yes, Will, _you_. You are still familiar with who that is, are you not?"

"Shut up!" shouted Will, trying for the third time to get to his feet. This time, he was able to accomplish the task. His fists tightened into hard firsts as Hannibal leisurely rolled up to a standing position. "Don't ask me if I know me. Don't you _dare_!"  
Hannibal took a slow step closer to the man as Will continued.

"You were the one, _you_, who taught me that. I know exactly who I am, _Doctor Lecter_." He spat Hannibal's professional title with so much venom in his tone that both of them flinched.

"No, you don't, Will," Hannibal returned after a painful silence. "And before you tell me otherwise, allow me to prove that to you. I know how many lives you've taken better than you do. _One_."

Will knew that statement to be a subtle, implicit confession to the murder of Abigail Hobbs. During his time in prison he had assimilated that Hannibal had done it, certainly, but hearing it, even in an indirect way, was like an icy, rusted pickaxe down his spinal column. It was something he had known in his heart of hearts to be true but he had refused to accept it until that moment. Part of him, a very small but nonetheless invaluable spot of optimism, had let himself hope that all of this wasn't true, that she would come visit him any day now.

He bit his lower lip and screwed shut his eyes so that the stinging, hot tears in them couldn't fall.

"Do you think her dying is easy for me?" Hannibal asked him coldly. "It's not. I've not felt remorse in a very long time, Will, but-"

"Don't tell me that you're _sorry_!" bellowed Will, storming pointedly towards the wall. He unclenched one fist just long enough to grip the phone in it. Before he could begin to dial, Hannibal strode over to him and snatched the hand holding the phone.

"Who're you hoping to call?"

Will tried to tug his hand away, but the grip Hannibal had on him was much too firm.

"Will," Hannibal pressed, tone never rising, "With whom do you want to speak?"

Will released the phone, eyes wide and distant and swarming with anger. "Alana. Beverly. Someone. Not you, anyone but you...Alana needs to know. She needs to know I'm..." Will struggled to finish the sentence. His first instinct was to finish it with 'safe,' but then he realized he was not at all safe, or 'okay' which had been his second thought. "...here," he concluded.

"No need," Hannibal piped, returning the phone to it's place. "The prison staff was given detailed instructions. The FBI has been informed that you were released on account of immaculate behavior and a need for near-constant mental help, which, if I may add, is not untrue."

Will ground his teeth, fighting back the urge to attack the man as the doctor continued explaining.

"You are, therefore, to be in my care at all times. We will leave the house together and we will return to it together. Neither of us will be home alone at any point."

"So I'm your hostage." Will summarized, eyebrows shooting up.

"Don't think of it as imprisonment, Will," Hannibal replied, leaning coolly in the doorjamb. "Think of it as recovery time...with an old friend."

Will shut his eyes tightly, his brow knit as he shook his head at the use of that last word.

"Maybe instead of devoting that mind of yours to learning _me_ you should brush up on things friends do and do not do," Will remarked brutally, voice cold and leaden and entirely unforgiving.

That night, Will lay in the bed Hannibal had prepared for him. A snowstorm had befallen the area, and the sounds of the wind howling outside were clearly audible in Will's new room. As much as he hated to admit it, Hannibal had designed the guest bedroom as exquisitely as the rest of the home. There was a variety of potted plants and a single chandelier, simple but elegant, that hung from the ceiling. In the wan light of the bedside table lamp,Will lay in a pair of pajamas not his own.

While it had been a relief to be rid of his jumpsuit, he wished he could have put on his own clothes as replacement instead of those loaned to him by Hannibal. The doctor had traveled to Will's home the day before breaking Will out of it and picked up around half of Will's wardrobe, but according to him it had been "left alone so long that it all needed a very vigorous run in the wash," a statement which Will was a touch chagrined over. Still, it'd be comforting to have his clothes back and readily available. Perhaps the only thing Will would miss about prison was the ceiling, he decided. That little dose of consistency was one he had come to rely on.

As he was about to turn off his light, he froze. There was another source of stability, a second shard of the remnants of his life before the arrest. His letter.

He sat bolt upright in bed and scrambled to the floor where his jumpsuit lay in a pool. Fumbling through the folds, he began to worry he'd left the sheet of paper behind...he had, after all, lost time before leaving...

But then his troubled hands found their reward. There, in the sleeve of his navy uniform, was a miraculous little leaf of paper. A letter. _His_ letter. Will had known when he was given the room that it'd be several days before he had any proper sleep, but now, with the semi-presence of one of the only people in the world he trusted, maybe, just maybe, he may be able to sleep a bit that night.


	4. Kouglof

**Author's Note:** _Happy Sunday! I think it's important to note that Will and Hannibal are not the only people affected by Will's leaving jail. And so we've a brief segment here featuring some classic Lady Friendship._

_Nothing gruesome in this week's chapter, really. As always I don't own these characters and make no money writing about them...but a review would be lovely!_

_Enjoy!_

* * *

"May I join you?"

The question was superfluous, but Beverly asked it anyway. Anything to gain the attention of the young doctor, who sat by herself at a desk not her own, eyes distant as though she was not fully present. Alana jerked her gaze up from her soup, puzzled.

"Um...you and I have been eating together every day for nearly four months now," she quipped, "Why are you asking me permission _now_ all of a sudden?"

"I'll take that as a yes, then," the scientist said, sitting down.

The two women had been colleagues for years, but no real friendship between the two of them had been forged...that is until the evening wherein Alana kissed Will Graham. In a panic, she'd unknowingly done exactly as he had; reached out to someone. Her reasoning behind the action was not for comfort or out of confusion but rather reassurance. She'd done the right thing. She knew she had, but she still needed to hear that from someone else. And so perhaps the only truly positive thing that came from that day was brought about; Alana found a friend in Beverly Katz. Since then, they'd been eating together every day. Their previous venue had been Alana's office, but after she took on the teaching of Will's old class at the FBI academy, the oaken desk that was the centerpiece of the classroom became their meeting place.

"Really though," Alana asked, "what made you think you weren't supposed to sit here? It's not high school anymore, Bev."

Beverly rolled her beetle-black eyes. "You know why. Why are you making me say it?"

Trumped before the argument had even begun, Alana opened up her lunch bag with a resigned sigh. "Are you feeling okay?"

Beverly cast the inquiry aside. "Are _you_?"

Upon her arrival at work that morning, Alana, along with the rest of the BAU Team, was slapped with very serious news. Will Graham had been released.

According to the facility, his behavior was very good, and the resident therapists had decided that, if he _had_ killed Abigail Hobbs, there was no way he'd remember doing it and there was no way he'd have any idea it had happened. And so they'd recommended he reside with Hannibal Lecter for constant mental treatment, in the hope that Will would become lucid enough to stop experiencing losses of time. In short, the institute staff had declared, even without formal trial, that Will Graham was Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity. He had been rubber-stamped.

Jack, along with almost everyone else at headquarters, had been pleased. Will Graham was getting the help he needed, and while that brought additional guilt upon Jack's shoulders, he did feel it was the best choice regarding the health of his former special agent. Alana, however, disagreed with the idea and she made a point of telling Jack so.

"I certainly hope Hannibal knows what he's in for," she'd snapped immediately after Jack had tried to convince her of the benefits of this plan. "If anything happens to Will while he's in his care...I don't even want to broach that. This is not fair to Hannibal, and frankly, it isn't fair to Will either! He needs therapy at scheduled times and a calm, quiet environment, free of distraction."

"You say that, but as I recall, Doctor Bloom, you are the only person involved in this matter who has contacted Mister Graham," Jack snapped. "If you thought a distraction-free environment was so important, you should not have gone to that effort."

"He needed that contact," Alana told Beverly over their lunch after having related the details of her disagreement with Jack to her. "It isn't wise to leave him alone."

"Maybe not, but we can't change what's happened. He's going to be a full-time patient with Doctor Lecter, and if we can't trust him, who _can_ we trust?"

"I know," grumbled Alana, prodding at her noodles, "but...I was there. I _watched_ him fall apart. So I can't help but feeling maybe I could help him just as well as Hannibal could."

"You and I both know why that's a terrible idea."

"Right."

Beverly took a sip from her thermos. "There's loads of reasons, really. Obvious one aside."

Alana's eyebrows shot up. "Oh?"

"Well for one, he could get violent. I worry what may happen to you if he does."

"You don't worry about Hannibal, then?"

"Oh no, I do," Beverly explained. "But between the two of you, he could defend himself better against a grown man. No offense."

With a shrug of her small shoulders, Alana remarked "None taken."

A few moments of silence passed, and then Beverly reached across the space between them and extended a hand to Alana's shoulder. The latter knitted her brow, staring at the tanned hand by her neck, watching the fingers curl and pluck something off of her sleeve.

"Dog hair," Beverly mused. "Sorry. Fiberologist. Nothing like this gets passed me."

Alana chucked tersely. "Well thank you, I suppose."

"You didn't answer what I asked, you know," Beverly prodded, "Are you doing okay?"

Never having been able to hide anything from her friend before, Alana decided there was no point in trying to do so now.

"Not really."

Beverly propped her chin on her hand. "Why?"

Alana gave a short, humorless laugh. "Why do you think? I'm worried about him."

Knowing full well that her worrying over the man was only the surface of Alana's issue with the circumstance, Beverly prodded, "And...?"

"And I know that it's silly, but I can't help feeling I may have been able to keep this from happening...I told you about Doctor Gideon, right?"

"You mentioned working with him, yes," answered Beverly with a thoughtful nod.

"Well, Doctor Gideon thought he was the Chesapeake Ripper because Doctor Chilton kept planting it in his mind and-"

Beverly cut off Alana immediately after realizing where this was headed. "You didn't plant the idea in Will's head that he wasn't stable."

"I kept _bringing it up_!" Alana flung out, "Maybe he was trying so hard to be stable that it backfired on him and he fell apart."

"Stop it." Beverly demanded, placing her hand on the doctor's, firm but reassuring. "Will was unstable before you. Some people are born off-balance. He is not your patient. It was not your job to balance him."

"He may not've been my patient, but he_ is_ my friend."

"He's mine, too," Beverly countered. "And as his friend, all I can do is hope and pray that Will is going to be fine. And it's all you can do, too."

She sighed. "I don't know, Bev."

"Alana."

The woman in question jerked her stormy eyes up at her friend. "Hmm?"

"He's gonna be fine."

Many miles away, Will Graham lay flat on his back in bed, looking out the window. There was a light snow falling; Will watched it dust flaky kisses on the soil, meant to hold flowers in the springtime, which was perched on his windowsill. The sky was dark and so the room was only dimly lit. Folding his hands in his lap, Will began to consider going down for dinner.

The cohabitation of Hannibal Lecter and Will Graham was proving to be a rather silent affair. There was an energy in the space the two men shared; a longing. For stability, for peace of mind, for clarity, for answers, for a resolution, a healing. Longing to fill some sort of nameless void; tangible but nameless. Naturally, the two men went about the issue in different ways.

Hannibal was not a man of guilt. No, he blamed himself for almost nothing that he caused, as if he were above it all, as if he were God. And his new living situation with Will was no different. There was no fault in his actions that he perceived, and so he acted as if nothing at all between him and Will had changed, as if they were as they'd always been; two souls, different but kindred, leading a lovely, delightfully morbid coexistence. Hannibal rose bright and early every morning to brew coffee and cook breakfast for himself and Will. He would make attempts to engage him in light conversation, would ask him how he was feeling, as if ignoring the void between the two entirely would make it go away. Perhaps, he had decided on the long drive from the Baltimore Prison to his home, things would begin to look up in their own due time, and so he would live as normal until they did.

Will, on the other hand, would creep downstairs later in the morning to eat the food that Hannibal prepared long after Hannibal finished eating. He would stand in the kitchen, dining alone. Hannibal, somehow sensing that Will had returned to the lower floor, would enter the kitchen where the man stood and speak conversationally to him. Will rarely replied, and when he did he responded only to say "Yes" or "No;" never to hold a conversation with the man who had freed him and trapped him again with the turn of a key. While Hannibal tried to act as if the problem did not exist, Will retreated from it entirely, distancing himself from Hannibal as much as he could manage. Even without saying a word, Will's former confidante was nothing short of _torturing_ him.

To say that the death of Abigail Hobbs and the resulting month in prison had hardened Will's heart to Hannibal would be a ridiculous understatement. Will had trusted the doctor-what reason did he have not to? Every time he had come to Hannibal, bringing with him restless bones and a foggy mind, he'd given Will support and rest, given him sight in the dark. It was almost like that childhood game of Trust Fall; no matter what, he had been able to rely on Hannibal to keep him from falling. Will gained total confidence in his friend, and then one day after catching him, Hannibal violently shoved him back up again so that he fell down hard, flat on his face. Bruised in more ways than one, Will had tried to see it at face value; a psychiatrist leading a double life as a sadistic serial killer. His mimicry of other killers made him especially dangerous because it was much harder to pin him down. _'_

_Telling the FBI that Doctor Lecter's the Copycat Killer would be a lot like the time Bruce brought a squirrel he'd killed into the house,' _Will had thought to himself one evening in his cell. _'He went to all the effort of catching it, and instead of a reward I scolded him and felt bad for the rodent.' _

Indeed, absolutely no one at all had suspected Hannibal Lecter, least of all Will. And now only two people knew the truth. Being in on that secret made Will feel oddly powerful and yet incredibly vulnerable...as well as the strongest spite he could ever recall feeling. But of course Will couldn't look at it at face value, because Hannibal was not just an extremely successful serial killer. He had also been his closest friend.

Of course now he could barely bring up the strength to look at the man at all. He had been wearing glasses every moment of the day since his forced move-in, and he had no intention at all of stopping that any time soon. It was a good shield from eyes he did not want to meet...and he certainly did not want to meet Hannibal's. He had always been able to enter the perspective of anyone he wished-or didn't wish, which was more often the case, with even just a fleeting connection of irises. But never Hannibal, no, Hannibal's mind was not accessible locale. And infuriatingly, the man almost taunted him with it; he went about his life as if Will wasn't suffocating because of him.

Heaving a long-suffering sigh, Will rose from his bed, stomach vocal in announcing that dinnertime was long overdue. He had been in his room for the majority of the day, avoiding his former friend as though his very life depended on it. In a way it likely did, given how horribly dangerous the man was. He treaded lightly, knowing that Hannibal was surely downstairs, waiting for him to arrive. Perhaps if he traveled silently he would be able to snatch up whatever Hannibal had left out for him and move back up to his room without incidence.

No such luck.

He made it all the way down to the kitchen. Sitting on the counter was a small porcelain plate, which carried a deep but relatively narrow bowl. The dish was filled with a broth, which served as the storehouse for thin white noodles, chopped onions, and bits of mushroom. A simple, but delicious smelling, soup. Will lifted the dish and was just turning to carry his plate back up to his room when Hannibal seemingly materialized out of nowhere, popping up a couple feet to the back of Will and with no word of warning beforehand. But suddenly there he was, directly behind him. Will became hyper-aware of his presence; it was rather overwhelming really. His had elbow bumped into the firmness of Hannibal's rib when he'd turned from the counter, and now Will was frozen in place, entirely unsure of what to do. If he continued to turn, he'd have to face Hannibal directly, brush past him even. If he turned back around and ate the soup as if Hannibal wasn't there, Lord knows how long he'd have to wait for Hannibal to move.

He opted for the latter.

Turning back around, Will spooned himself mouthfuls of the warm soup, making a valiant effort to ignore the man behind him. Hannibal watched him intently, like a high-perched falcon gazing down upon earthly prey. He studied the slope of Will's back, a survey Will could feel. It was unpleasant, almost invasive, and he curled his toes to keep from squirming beneath the gaze. Setting the bowl down in a huff, he spun on his heel and exclaimed, "What the _hell_ do you want?!"

Unfortunately, Will had not anticipated that Hannibal would not take a step back when Will turned on him, and so the motion brought them uncomfortably close. Will's eyes jerked down immediately to the floor to avoid meeting those of Hannibal, which he just knew were placid, insensitive to the situation.

Hannibal was acutely aware of the minimal room between the two as well. It birthed an energy filled of the longing that had occupied his residence since Will's moving in, which was charged with a vivid electricity he could not explain, a heat.

"I wanted to see you," Hannibal replied crisply. "We live together and yet we cross paths so very briefly each day."

Reaching out a hand, he tilted Will's chin up so that he was forced to look at him.

"I wonder why that is?"

The brief touch of eyes, while very swift, was excruciating. Will averted his blue gaze from the auburn one to the fullest extent he could manage, but even in their quick meeting he could see that there was a small, creeping smile playing on the older man's lips. He could smell the soup and the wine on Hannibal's breath. The scent was oddly enticing, and he wondered very briefly if it would taste as uniquely pleasant as it smelled...He screwed his eyes shut a moment, banishing the alien thought. It was a natural process to associate smell with taste, after all. Will decided with thick bitterness that Hannibal probably tasted like blood.

They stood there like that for a moment and Will wondered very briefly if Hannibal was going to kill him. He did, after all, have a hand on his chin. It would be so easy for him to lower it, to cuff his neck and not let go...

But Hannibal didn't strangle Will. Not literally anyway. He took a small step closer to Will so that their torsos were nearly touching, making it nearly impossible for Will to not look at him, to act as if the man wasn't there. Indeed, Hannibal's taking up the space he occupied, which he currently cherished above all other things, was stealing the oxygen from his lungs, suffocating him with fear and with an odd but definite feeling of _want_. What exactly he wanted he had no idea, but there was something, nameless but very urgent, in the air he shared with Hannibal Lecter.

A second hand came towards Will, and he winced even before it reached him, anticipating for the second time in a minute that he was going to be strangled. Hannibal's fingers did not seek Will's throat, although the kill would be entirely too easy. Instead, they curled themselves around the rim of Will's glasses, dragging them off Will's nose in a tortuously slow gesture. Hannibal made a brief note of the feel of Will's bony cheek on his digits as he collected the former agent's last line of defense off his face.

"No," murmured Will faintly.

He could not shield his eyes, nor could he shut or even avert them. No, they were trained on Hannibal's. Every part of his psyche screamed for him to release the contact, to run, to hide, to get out of the hold Hannibal had on him, but whatever part of his mind that was in charge of seeing to it that those instincts were carried out had it's voice drowned out by the screams of another part of him, the part that was utterly terrified, utterly transfixed, by the contact. He opened and closed his mouth stupidly.

"Yes, Will?" Hannibal asked, positively simpering over the smugness he felt at having gotten the man in question to submit to his will.

"I...I would like for you to let go."

Slowly, deftly, Hannibal released Will's chin. The latter man's head, however, did not move. Neither did the rest of his body. And neither did Hannibal's. They stood there for a long moment, in a bizarre, dark little trance...and then Will jerked his head down, collected his soup, and pushed past Hannibal so swiftly he nearly collided with him.

After Will had gone up the stairs, Hannibal returned to the wine glass he'd been drinking at his table. He raised the drink to his lips with a light smile. Today had been a victory, a conquest. He had been hoping to coax Will out of the turtle shell he seemed to be permanently lodged in, had been hoping to get him to look at him again, to see him, really see him...He needed that. He needed Will to see him again.

Yes, he decided, today had certainly been a victory.


	5. Religieuse

**Author's Note:** _This is a touch late. I am very sorry; I have been on the road all day today and yesterday and was with friends on Friday Nonetheless, I did manage to post on Sunday!_

_I must warn you. This chapter contains explicit, mature themes. If the slash aspect of Hannigram grosses you out, I highly suggest backing out now. I got the idea for a snippet of this chapter from the lovely .com, and it was used with her permission._

_As usual, NBC owns these characters. I don't profit by writing this, but reviews would be lovely! __Enjoy!_

* * *

It hit Will, with sudden and intense force, that she really was dead.

Midnight. An hour to begin to settle down for the night in the eyes of most, and yet, Will Graham lay wide awake in his bed, mulling over the fact that there really was no moment where she'd adjust her scarf and ask him about her father again.

He had been thinking about Abigail that evening as usual. He often would dwell on the girl, pondering her life and the impact it had on his. She had come in to his world like a gas-lit flame; an enormous matter that leaped up out of nowhere.

A danger, a scare.

He had nurtured her, tried to guide her as best as he could. His relationship with her was never perfect, always fragile at best. He had, after all, killed her father and then, to her thinking, tried to take over his role in her life. No, things had never been picture-esque with the two of them. But they shared an experience, traumatic and intimate, that bound them together. At one point, when Doctor Lecter had referred to himself and Will as Abigail's new fathers, with the added obligation to do better in the role than Garret Jacob Hobbs, he realized that their bond had another layer. He loved her.

Love was a word in Will Graham's vocabulary most commonly associated with the canine population. He had little surviving family that he contacted, no lover, and a scant amount of close friends. There were never many people Will had truly _loved_. Sure, he felt compassion for people, but too often his gift of empathy got in the way of things, one way or another. It had even gotten in the way of his relationship with Abigail on occasion. And yet he loved her. In a way he felt he might love her _for_ the effort he expounded into their relationship and not in spite of it; one cannot walk barefooted on flaming shards of broken glass for someone and not come to love them, he figured. Indeed, Will had gone through far too much when it came to the Hobbs family to not begin to care deeply for the orphan girl. She had become, as Hannibal had once put it, his 'surrogate daughter,' and he loved her. He loved her as fathers do. He loved her as fathers do and she had been taken away from him.

For the longest time he'd had no idea what had become of the girl during the hours in which he'd lost time. Regardless of what had happened in that timespan, Will felt a crushing responsibility for the outcome; Abigail Hobbs was dead.

Someone had killed her.

Will had believed, at first, that the killer in question was him. Her blood was literally on his hands, he'd coughed up an ear of hers into the sink. And for a while he believed himself to be the last person who had seen Abigail alive. The feeling that he may have murdered her had brought about a cold guilt that felt akin to being stranded alone in the center of a sheet of thin ice; treacherous and impassible. To say that the guilt he felt was crippling would be to say that a forest fire is warm, or that the stars in the sky were distant. He felt such an overwhelming responsibility for the death; the weight of it on him became too much to bear and so he attempted to shrug it off. And now, as he lay alone in his room, it hit him, really hit him, that just because he had shrugged the weight off, did not mean she was ever going to be alive again. He could not give her back what she'd lost under his care. And it was with that thought in mind that his feet took up a mind of their own and began to lead him across the hall.

He needed answers, and before he knew it, Will's hands had curled themselves around the cool doorknob that lead to Hannibal Lecter's room.

Under any other circumstance, Will would have avoided this door altogether. He had spent almost a month now skirting around Hannibal as much as he could, making minimal conversation and adhering to a policy of brevity when it came to any crossings of their paths. Privately, though, he had been growing increasingly angry with the doctor. At no point during Will's forced residency with him had he made even an attempt to apologize to him, not a word of explanation as to the death of Abigail Hobbs, let alone why he'd done it or how he'd framed Will so perfectly for the act. And so his resentment for the man had only thickened as time passed.

And yet...

Will recalled with agony the time before Abigail's death. A time wherein he'd had a trusted confidante in Hannibal, a time where he'd been able to rely on the man. Will need only open the door to Hannibal's home and he would find solace and balance...and now here he stood, terrified to voluntarily bring himself into Hannibal's presence.

But there was another part of him, which had apparently taken over as the dominant side of his mind that night, that so desperately wanted answers. So desperately, in fact, that Will found himself turning that knob and sending the door flying open.

The room was much more lavish than the guest room Will was using. The walls were a tomato red, save for one; the bed was against a wall of white stones. A bookshelf took up the majority of one of the other walls, and two doors were visible on either side of it. They lead to a closet and a bathroom, Will imagined. His eyes fell upon Hannibal, who sat in his bed, reading a book in the dim light of the small, elegant table lamp. Though he wore pajamas as Will did, he couldn't help but notice that even his pants matched a nightshirt that bore buttons and a collar. The nightclothes were so incredibly like Hannibal that Will almost forgot what he was there to do for a moment.

Almost.

"Good evening, Will."

Will was in a dangerous place, and they both knew it. The lion was in the room, but Will Graham had brought with him a spear. The weapon would do very little to safeguard him in the long run, but it gave him fleeting courage, just enough so to speak.

"Doctor Lecter."

Setting his book aside, Hannibal scooted back a bit so that he was better propped against the headboard. "While my home is always open to friends," he began, prim and proper as always, "I cannot help but wondering why you have chosen this hour to speak to me."

"I am not your _friend_," Will replied flatly.

"Is that so?" Hannibal asked, adjusting his collar. "As I recall,we've been a rather close-knit pair for a while. Whatever changed your mind, Will?"

Will's eyebrows shot up so far that they became in danger of disappearing into his curls. "You know full well why you and I are no longer on a first-name basis."

Hannibal pursed his lips thoughtfully, as if trying to recall that had brought about the change. "Are you referring to the death of Abigail Hobbs?"

Infuriated over his nonchalance, Will spat back "_Yes_."

"Many people have died since we met, you know," Hannibal replied, toying him further. "Why was this one so special to you?"

"You know why!" bellowed Will, face growing hot in his rage.

Hannibal swung his slender legs around so that his feet were planted on the oaken floor. Rolling comfortably to a standing position, he took a moment to stretch his arms before replying. "Because you cared for this one?"

Will's eyes bugged. "Because _you_ cared for this one!"

Now it was Hannibal's turn to raise his eyebrows.

"Because I cared for the girl, she was immune to death?" he asked skeptically, plunking his hands down on his hips.

A grief, unsolicited but powerful, rose up within Will, hitting his conscious like a stormy wave. "Why did you kill her?!" Will finally blurted out around a painful lump in his throat, unable to restrain himself any longer.

"The same reason I killed Tobias Budge," Hannibal informed him simply. "Pure necessity."

Will opened his mouth to reply, and, as if sensing what he was about to ask, Hannibal continued. "And before you ask me how you ended up on the far side of the bars, I must confess something to you."

Will's eyebrows rose even higher, which Hannibal took as a cue to carry on talking.

"It was incredibly easy. You were having an episode when I returned with her remains. Slipping that bit of flesh down your throat was the easiest part of her murder...which, I might add, was simple. Clean cut...and absolutely necessary."

There was something inexplicably devastating about that particular phrase to Will. "She didn't do anything to you," he whispered, eyes stinging. "She cared about you so much. I thought...I thought you felt the same."

"I _did_ feel the same!" Hannibal snapped, the firmness in his tone such a contrast to the calmness he normally exuded that he rather shocked Will. A moment of very taut silence filled the room just as that heat arrived again. Hannibal could not explain just what it was, but it was there, it was powerful; an intense energy occupying the space he shared with Will Graham. "For an empath, you are being shockingly unsympathetic. I cared for Abigail Hobbs every bit as much as you did."

"Perhaps you did," mused Will bitterly, "in the same way that a snake loves the prey it catches before he unhinges his jaw to it eat."

Hannibal gazed at Will in the light of that remark, expression unreadable as Will continued to speak.

"You said..." Will began, tone broken. "You said...that you felt...obligated to help her in her life."

"And a part of life is death, Will," Hannibal returned calmly. "She had to die. It is nature's way, you know."

It was at this that Will Graham lost his temper. Anger flaring, his spine straightened and his muscles contracted, giving him the appearance of a man much stronger, much less intimidated, than he truly was, like a cat arching its back and hissing upon sensing danger.

"I know how nature works, Doctor Lecter!" he shouted, "Don't you dare tell me about the cycle of life and death! I've seen it, I've felt it, I know what it is to die!"

"She was dying internally, Will, you could see her slipping-"

"You saved her life." Will cut across, jaw tightening. "Why would you save her, let her keep her life, just so you could..._take it away_ from her?!"

"That's a simple matter, Will," Hannibal remarked deftly, taking a few steps closer to Will. They were just a few feet away now. "She knew too much. She hurt too much. It would have been better for her to die now than later, after suffering longer than was needed. Call it a..._euthanasia_."

"A _**mercy killing**_?!" Will shouted back, blistering with rage. "Abigail Hobbs' life was just beginning! You could have helped her, kept her alive, chased those demons away...you didn't have to destroy her!"

Several moments of agonizing silence past. Will's hands were curled into tight fists, eyes alight with unshed tears.

"We aren't just talking about Abigail, are we?" Hannibal asked placidly, eyebrow raising.

Will did not answer; a small noise emitted from his lips as he averted his gaze, screwing his eyes shut an attempt to keep the tears within them from rolling down his cheeks. His already curled fists clenched even tighter as he did so.

"Will. Relax your fists. You and I both know you are not going to attack me."

"SHUT UP!" Will screamed, eyes flying wide open in rage.

"Shut up, _shut up_, _shut __**up**__**!**_"

Hannibal merely smirked at this. Will took a small step closer to him in his anger, and the heat between them magnified again. Will noticed; he could feel it both on his skin and in his mind, but he was too irate to consider its implications.

"How many times have you helped me get rid of demons that arrived from your _own_ doing?! Under the guise of being my _friend_?! Someone who _loved_ me?!"

Hannibal strode closer to Will, minimizing the space between the men to a mere arms-length. If Will wanted, he could punch Hannibal square in the jaw-he had the fist prepared to do it, after all.

"You helped me. You pulled emotions out of my body, helped me to feel, to _see... _And for what? To 'peek behind the curtain' of the FBI, as you said?! To frame me?!"

Another step. Another rush of heat.

"All this time..." Will seethed, "You have been the culprit. You destroyed a...a girl...who needed you, who _loved_ you..."

He hadn't thought anything of it the first time the idea had been brought up, but Hannibal was right and they both knew it. This was just as much about Hannibal's betrayal of Will as it was about his betrayal of Abigail Hobbs, and as the survivor of the incident, Will carried with him the burden of both blindsides. The realization was nothing short of excruciating.

"I may have kept things from you, dear Will, but my feelings for you have never been false. The time I shared with you, I will treasure it."

Will winced at the words; it was so very like before, gentle and seemingly caring. He tried to block out Hannibal's words, but he had always been rather powerless against the man, and he supposed this wasn't going to be an exception.

"We are to change now," Hannibal continued with a wry, devilish little grin.

"You may spend all your life hunting me, trying to prove your innocence and my guilt. But I will always care deeply for you, Will."

Then the tears came.

Unable to bite them back any longer, they leaked silently from his eyes, pooling slightly on the apples of his cheeks before rolling the rest of the way down. As if the shame of shedding tears before him wasn't enough, Will could feel Hannibal's eyes intently following their path as well. The heated tension between the two of them only grew more stifling in those raw moments.

"Why?" Will asked thickly, voice low but ridden with grief and fury.

"Why will I always care for you?" Hannibal questioned.

Will's temper flared again at those words. "No, why do you think that's okay?" he boomed in rage. "Why the hell do you think that if you act like I mattered, that _she_ mattered, that I'm just going to roll over and take that?! You cost me _everything! _My sanity, my dogs, Abigail, everything! It's _gone_! I have nothing left to give you! What do you expect to gain by lying to me again?!"

Will swung his fist out so that it pounded loudly against the door, the sound reverberating as he continued.

"I've been here for a month, a _month_! And you've acted as if nothing has changed, as if you haven't taken everything away. As if you expect me to act like none of this happened!"

Will barely noticed, but Hannibal took one last petite step towards him, putting them a scanty foot apart.

"If you cared for me as you said, you wouldn't have done this. Any of this! How can you stand there and claim to feel anything for me at all?!"

That was as far as Will got before Hannibal aggressively eliminated the remaining space between them. In the moment before the contact, the white-hot energy between the two of them began to boil...and then it took the form of some sort of inferno in Hannibal's chest, like a needy dragon.

The kiss that Will had shared with Alana had been a gentle, warm, and hopeful experience. But there was nothing gentle about the way Hannibal kissed him; there was no nervous meeting of lips, no questioning, no thought for Will's desires or lack thereof at all. It was an insisting, forceful meeting, a colliding of teeth above anything else.

The sensation was uncomfortable but not entirely unpleasant. The two men barely had time to wrestle their tongues before Hannibal once again took complete control of the situation and claimed the heat of Will's mouth for his own. With a shove, he pinned him by the shoulders against the door.

Will exercised the somewhat limited use of his arms to reach up and knot his fingers in Hannibal's hair, tugging and yanking on the soft strands. Pushing his body up, Will was able to gain some ground and deepen the kiss further, teeth again making contact with teeth as he did. Quite suddenly, Hannibal jerked his head away and Will gasped for air, trying to stabilize the oxygen levels in his body, when he received a bite just beneath his jawline. His breath hitched as his hands smacked out blindly against the wall, and Hannibal pressed forth, biting and sucking Will's upper neck.

Hannibal lowered his lips. Planting them at the base of Will's neck, he made a trail traveling upwards (suck bite lick, suck bite lick) until he returned to the top of the area. Hannibal finished his handiwork with one last bite; Will's entire body jackknifed at the touch.

The younger man lunged up to reclaim Hannibal's mouth. His front teeth were sore from their repeated clashes with Hannibal's, but Will was too taken over with carnal need to do anything but continue to give and receive rough, painful kisses. Perhaps he was a bit _too_ lost in the gesture, because he found the backs of his thighs being pressed flush against the dark wood of Hannibal's footboard without noticing the fact that Hannibal had steered him to the location.

Hannibal's hands snaked their way down to Will's hips, where the man clawed his nails against Will's backside and the base of his back, stepping as close to him as possible, bringing their torsos flush against each other. The doctor growled, a low, feral noise, into the confines of Will's mouth. The vibration, the animal instinct in the noise, spurred Will on. He reached up and dug his own nails into Hannibal's back, gripping his angel bones like a vice as he lunged forth and delivered a firm bite to the base of Hannibal's neck. The older man froze with a gasp for a fleeting moment before slowly reaching up and putting a hand over Will's throat.

"Don't do that again," he ordered in a silken whisper before applying pressure to the windpipe. The air stalled in Will's body, unable to exit and be replaced by new oxygen.

"You're in my command now," Hannibal whispered, leaning close to Will. "Your life is literally in my hands. Are you going to fight me, Will?"

Under normal circumstances, Will would have thrashed out, attacked whatever was keeping him from breathing...but this turn of events was very far from normal circumstances. And so he found himself gripping the footboard, trying not to loose himself in the danger, the _eroticism_, of it all.

"So you trust me then," Hannibal observed. "Interesting."

Will began to see spots. In a few seconds, he'd black out in Hannibal's grip, and yet, he did not panic.  
In one swift motion, Hannibal released Will's neck, snatched the hems of the younger man's shirt, and yanked it over his head. However, no sooner had he bared Will's chest before Hannibal was wrapping the cloth around Will's neck, cutting off his breath again with a firm tug. Hannibal leaned close to the man so that they were almost nose-to-nose, a thin smile playing on his lips as he did.

"I've got you again," he commented, "Are you going to fight now?"

The blood in Will's head was trapped where it was; even with his circulation cut off, Will could still note the blood in his body rushing somewhere else.  
It was bizarre, he thought, that being strangled by Hannibal Lecter was having this effect over him, but there he stood, breathless and fully hardened under Hannibal's grasp. He was just beginning to feel faint again, and then Hannibal whipped the shirt off of Will's neck. Will had no time to catch his breath, however, because Hannibal crossed the space between them and kissed him ardently, all clashing teeth and tongue, clawing at Will's shoulders.  
Will slid his fingers under the folds of the doctor's nightshirt, palming his hip bones with clammy, desperate hands. In response, Hannibal framed Will's hips in his hands and lifted up his body, shoving him down on his back against the mattress with all the tenderness of a hungry tiger. Indeed, Hannibal seemed ravenous, plowing himself atop Will's body. Will moved to remove Hannibal's shirt; he was clumsy and slow in the action, and Hannibal did not attempt to hide his mocking little chuckle over that. He planted his mouth on Will's shoulder to deliver a firm bite to his collarbone, and Will flinched a bit at the contact. For the second time, Hannibal made a trail from the bone with his mouth (bite suck lick, bite suck lick), down Will's chest (bite suck lick, bite suck lick) over the expanse of his belly (bite suck lick, bite suck lick). He stayed there a while, biting, sucking, and licking in little circles over Will's stomach. It was as if he was reciting a sermon there; difficult to take but ultimately gratifying. He made his way further down and then stopped at the hem of Will's underwear.

There were faint traces of blood where Hannibal had made his marks, glinting in the wan lamplight on Will's skin and Hannibal's lips. The trail of marks, while painful, had been oddly pleasing to Will, and he gave a low groan of protest when Hannibal's mouth parted with his pelvic region.

"Be patient," Hannibal ordered, surveying the landscape of the region. The light blue cotton was hitched up around Will's thighs, and it stretched upwards around the strain within them. Placing one hand on his belly, Hannibal took up the hem of Will's boxers in his teeth and pulled. He tugged them up and over Will's erection, and as soon as they were around the man's knees, he replaced his teeth with his hands to drag them down the rest of the way; his mouth was now busy elsewhere.

Hannibal placed his lips over the head of Will's penis and Will hissed in pleasure, rolling his hips upwards to the touch. Hannibal wasted no time in beginning his work; he bared his teeth lightly so that they raked against the sides of Will's erection. It hurt considerably; he gave a harsh shout of pleasure and pain as his manhood received the same aggressive treatment as the rest his torso had. Will reached out, digging his nails into Hannibal's sheets, trying to keep himself from coming too soon...He kicked out spasmodically, and one of his knees accidentally hit Hannibal in the side.

Abruptly, the man ceased moving altogether, as if to punish Will.

Will waited for less than a second, and then huskily demanded that Hannibal keep moving. In reply, Hannibal delivered a very swift nip to the center of Will's phallus. Will cried out in pain, arching his body forward, to which Hannibal replied by placing his hand against the smooth skin of Will's chest and shoving him down on his back before continuing his work.

Deciding abruptly that he had grown tired of being beneath Hannibal, Will jerked his hips away just as Hannibal was pulling back on his penis, effectively removing himself from the doctor's mouth. Surging forth, Will pushed Hannibal down on his back, biting and sucking and clawing at him like a starving animal. He caught the hem of Hannibal's pants in his toes and shoved them down with his foot. The very instant that Hannibal was exposed, a noise escaped the older man's lips, something primal and needy.

Hooking his nails into Will's shoulders, Hannibal threw Will back down onto his belly and then seized him, wrapping his arms around the man's torso, pulling him up so that he was in his hands and knees. He quickly moved his hands to palm Will's shoulders and then Hannibal thrusted forward, entering Will's body with a swift, aggressive motion. There had been no preparation; no lubricant or fingering, and so the pain of it was so intense that Will couldn't even bring himself to scream. Hannibal's nails were like needles against his shoulders as the man brutally took Will; he thrusted in and out of Will's body again and again, low growls escaping his lips as he did.

In the midst of the intense pain he was in, Will recalled the emotion, the wrath, that had somehow gotten them here. The fighting, the words, the emotions and the sex, they were all so agonizing and raw that Will had no idea which sort of pain had caused tears to prick in his eyes again. It was likely a combination of them all.

He could feel the full of Hannibal's penis within his body-it was painful, certainly, but as the pain intensified with each mighty thrust, so did the pleasure of it, of being filled and emptied and filled again. Will had long since repressed feelings of attraction towards the male sex; he was enticed by the physique, the very souls, of both sexes but he had always perused females. Much more common, predictable, normal even. But now, as much as it hurt, he was beginning to regret the choice. Indeed, even as every part of his body seared with the pain Hannibal kept bringing him, he found himself starving for more.

A low moan escaped him, echoing through the room as he began to loose control if himself. Suddenly, but with no shortage of force, the nerves and tensions in his belly came undone. He gave a rough scream laced with strings of random curses, overwhelmed and relieved, pleasured and anguished, found and lost. Will came over the sheets as his orgasm peaked.

It took another minute or so for Hannibal to finish. The feeling of it, entering and exiting Will with such unabated fervor, was surreal; a mixing of healing and hurting, of letting to and holding on. He could feel Will tensing around him, and for a moment he thought he ought to place a kiss, a real one, on the top of Will's spine. He banished the thought, resorting to moving faster and faster,  
harder and harder, until he went over the edge himself. Rather than scream as Will had done, Hannibal gave a simple, husky groan of pleasure intermingled with growls and grunts. He noted, after dismounting Will, that neither of them had said the other's name.

Rolling off of Will's back, Hannibal flopped down against the sheets with a light groan. Will slowy came to a seated position in the bed, but he couldn't even look at Hannibal. It was far too messy, far too complicated now...

After he'd redressed himself, Will made his way to the door. He was almost out of the room when a voice hit his back.

"Goodnight, Will."  
Will turned his head, and for a brief moment his eyes fell on Hannibal's. So much had happened, so much had changed; he was more bewildered now than he had been before. He was still hurt, and the healing process had not started the way either of them had expected, no, Will still carried a heart burdened with loss. And yet now it was filled with so much else; longing and need and fear and pain.

He opened his mouth dryly.

"Goodnight, Doctor Lecter."


	6. Calisson

**Author's Note: **_I'm back to posting on a regular basis, but I will now be posting every other Sunday to accommodate my school schedule. As well, it's important to note that both Mads Mikkelsen and Brian Fuller have stated that Hannibal is in love with Will. This chapter begins my exploration of that._

_As always, I do not profit from this, but I'd love it if you'd review!_

* * *

One surefire sign of Spring in Maryland was the morning birds, chirping loudly into the crisp dawn air. Early March brought with it a whole team of change; new life, new sounds, new smells.

_And_, Hannibal supposed as he stirred, _new troubles as well_.

Under normal circumstances, Hannibal had complete awareness and perfect control of every muscle in his body, of every impulse that fleeted through his mind. Every motion was planned meticulously in the folds of his subconscious so that there was no error, no flaw in his step, like a god among men. He knew every whim that crossed his mind; knew how to gracefully, _artfully_, execute it. It was either he was poised and clever in getting what he wanted or he squashed the impulse altogether; Hannibal Lecter was as stalking tiger; he knew when and how and why to pounce. Nothing, no step, no sentence, no singular exhalation of breath, went unplanned.

Much less a _kiss_.

Will Graham had settled at the bottom of Hannibal's stomach, and not in a literal sense either. He was an integral part of his being now; unshakable and ever present, a fragment of his very core. How he got there was a mystery to the doctor, but there he was. He hadn't mattered, not really, not at first anyway. Will was supposed to be a run-of-the-mill psychiatric case to which Hannibal would give no second thought. He was supposed to be, and then they saved the life of Abigail Hobbs together. In doing so, Hannibal had become tied to Will; he felt an attachment, an overwhelmingly _human_ bond to someone so very like him and yet so very different.

Alana had always said that there was no bond quite like that shared by parents.

_Funny thing, parents_, Hannibal thought to himself. While wildly antithetic in their varieties and situations, all of them had at least two things in common. One, they shared a child, be it their own or one given to them. And two, at at least one point along their journey, they felt some sort of love for each other.

And so, by definition, he and Will were parents indeed.

Hannibal supposed it was logical, then, that he'd feel attached to his co-parent. However, he had not expected that attachment to come with the vast host of new thoughts, whims, and wants that had tagged along with it. Logical, and unexpected. Only one other time in his life had Hannibal felt truly bonded to another human being; his sister, Mischa, had been the only other person he had ever known who he considered worthy of his affection.

Hannibal removed the sheets from his body and rose slowly into a seated position, early morning light filtering in through the beige curtain as he thought about that. Now, nearly thirty years after the death of the last person Hannibal had ever felt any form of love for, enter Will Graham. He may have been the second person Hannibal felt any real, long-term care for, but he was the first person who had made him lose control of his impulses...or at least stop filtering them just long enough to get him to act on one. And for that reason, he was an incredibly dangerous man. What other word but danger could describe a man who convinced Hannibal's untouchable psyche to lapse into nothing more than fixated _want_?

The psychiatrist rose to his feet, only to discover a chill over the expanse of his skin. Looking over his form, he noted that not only were there no clothes present on his body, but that the lack of them revealed a bruise on his hipbones and scratch marks on his sides and shoulders, which looked as if they stretched all over the broad slope of his back. Fresh injuries from the night before. Hannibal prodded at the bruise, remembering quickly how it got there.

"_God," Will grunted beneath the heat of Hannibal's mouth. Hannibal only moved faster, rougher too, in a way he knew would hurt and pleasure Will at the same time. The elder man wasn't mistaken; Will writhed beneath the touch. In fact, he temporarily lost control of his legs-they bucked up and out, one of his knees jabbing the elder man firmly in the hip._

Hannibal opened the drawer to his dresser, selected a fresh pair of pajama pants, and slid them over the length of his legs before pulling a navy robe on over his torso as he thought about the unstable investigator. He doubted that a man like Will Graham came along more than once in a person's life, but Hannibal, forever poised and articulate, could not define how he felt for the man in a typical, layman's wording. No, there truly wasn't a word for it, and if there were, he wouldn't know because not once in his life had he felt it towards another human.

The odd sensation had come over him suddenly, everything considered. Hannibal hardly genuinely enjoyed anybody's company; he mostly tolerated it. Those worthy to be his friend were so few and far between, and everyone else, well, what was the point? But Will, Will had appeared and not only been worthy but someone who Hannibal actually wanted to forge a bond with. By the time in their relationship wherein he thought Tobias Budge had just killed the investigator, it hit Hannibal with a purely devastating force that he truly cared about Will. The sound of the words 'I just killed two men,' awoke something within the doctor's body, something like a fire or a cantankerous bear, and filled him with something he had not once felt in his entire life; terror. Doctor Lecter had never been an emotional man; he was so centered on himself, so focused on his own actions, that he had no interest in caring for others. As such, he was rather out of touch with the way he felt about Will.

Until that moment.

A few minutes later, the shifting of pots and pans downstairs woke Will. This was a typical occurrence; almost every morning he would stir at the sound of Hannibal preparing breakfast and then fall back asleep again. On this particular occasion, however, Will found himself unable to pull the sheets up and fall back asleep as per usual. There was a stinging sensation all over his torso, shoulders, and upper back. Just as well, his pelvic region and head were both in a searing amount of pain

"Goddammit," Will groaned and then immediately winced, the act of speaking and the resulting sound having aggravated his headache. He removed his shirt to examine the cause of the stinging on his upper body, grimacing as the fabric ran over the irritated skin.

The article of clothing removed, Will noted redness on his chest and belly but could not make out what it was. Frowning, he propped himself up against the headboard and turned on the lamp for an easier inspection.

He gasped in horror at what he saw.

"Oh God," Will muttered to no one in particular, taking in the array of small cuts. Evidently, the majority of Hannibal's bites had broken the skin, leaving the former agent's upper body a portrait of a morbidly twisted, cannibalistic kind of love. A quick grazing of his fingers along the curve of his shoulders and neck told Will that the areas had similar bitemarks and scrapes from Hannibal's nails.

"Oh God," Will said again, "What've I wrought..."

Will could scarcely move. His entire body ached, stung, and pained him with every inch he shifted himself as he clumsily got to his feet. Once there, however, he froze.  
From the point he was now at, he could go downstairs for breakfast now and risk running into Hannibal, or he could resist his already ravenous appetite to put off inevitably running into Hannibal for a handful of hours. Not a choice at all, really. He felt like a river; either way, he was running, and either way, he wouldn't get anywhere.  
His stomach, seemingly uncaring to Will's plight, gurgled insistingly, and he gave a low groan.

Will took slow, awkward steps to his dresser, trying desperately to shrug off the pervasive pain he felt with every footfall. There was no way he could return downstairs in the pajamas he'd worn the previous night; even now, as he thumbed the dull gray fabric of his shirt, he recalled, in full detail, what this fabric had done the night before. It had been used like a vice, an anaconda around his throat, going tighter and tighter in Hannibal Lecter's grip...There was something, something about that lethal closeness that he found himself oddly _yearning_ for...

He shook his head, clearing his mind of the thought. His wants and his needs were two far separate things. Maybe he wanted to be close to Lecter (a notion which was alien in and of itself), but he needed to survive, and he certainly wouldn't be doing that if he gave in to what he wanted.

He thought of Alana.

Months ago, he had put her in this very place. A fragile existence between desire and sensibility was not one Will Graham ever imagined himself occupying, and yet here he was. He knew what was needed; he needed to dissolve whatever it was between him and Hannibal once and for all. There was no telling what it was, let alone how to go about solving it, but he knew that whatever it was, it needed two things; a label and a solution. He had neither, and so Will figured there was no sense at all in taking the other route, which was to chase after what he wanted. He found himself _desperate_, body pleading with him for something he couldn't name. Both options were precariously unclear. No matter what he chose, his very livelihood could be at stake, and no matter what he chose, he'd have no idea what he was doing.

The thought of that, of putting Alana in the place he was now in, filled his bones with regret. Perhaps he'd had genuine feelings for her, perhaps she was as Hannibal said: a clutch for balance. Whatever sort of relationship he'd had with Alana, it was like all the others Will had experienced in his life; failed. Failed, and not serious. The company with her and with his small string of ex-girlfriends was generally pleasant. The sex, with two of the four of them, had been good. However, he couldn't recall a time a man, a woman, an ex, anyone, had stirred his heart up. And now he stood in very dangerous territory with a man who had stirred his heart a thousand times over in a thousand different ways...and it physically pained him.

He made a mental note to apologize to Doctor Bloom.

Twenty minutes later, Will found himself at the bottom of the stairs, clad in sweats and a fresh t-shirt and anxiously peeking into the kitchen. To his surprise, Hannibal was not there. He registered that with an odd mixture of relief and dread. With the man absent, he felt as if he should be able to stride normally into the kitchen for breakfast. Still, it was with an insidious sense of being stalked that Will creeped silently into the other room. He made sure to make no noise as he moved, which caused an even more pained style of walking than the one he'd already been incorporating, trying with all his might not to cause any disturbance at all...

Unfortunately, Will's luck ran out the instant he stopped at the counter. Normally, Hannibal would leave his breakfast in the precise same location. Today, however, the food was absent.

"Huh," muttered Will thoughtfully, scanning the room. "That's strange."

As if on cue, Hannibal entered from the dining room with two plates, one full and one mostly empty. He reached to put Will's dish where it was typically placed, only to note that Will was already standing there.

Hannibal set the plate down tersely.

"I normally set the breakfast table for two," he explained, moving to the sink to wash the other plate. "and when you do not join me, I place your dish on the counter for you to retrieve when you wake."

Hannibal dried his hands, noting Will's eyes cemented to the floor.

"To what do I owe the pleasure of your becoming an early bird?"

Will picked up his fork, determinedly not looking at Hannibal, and gave no reply before he began to eat.

Hannibal leaned against the counter, folding his arms over his chest. "You know, Will, you're being especially quiet this morning."

"It's just that you don't strike me as an Ignorer," Will replied suddenly.

Hannibal raised an eyebrow. "Pardon?"  
"There are three types of morning-after approaches, Doctor," muttered the younger man. "You have your Lovers, who make each other breakfast and kiss and cuddle. You have your Awkwards, who blush and stutter and stammer...and your Ignorers, who act like it never happened."

"Am I supposed to be acting like something negative happened?" Hannibal asked coolly.

Will looked at him then, face a portrait of surprise. "For a man who values manners and aptitude so highly, that was rather rude." He bit back on the urge to add 'and ignorant.'

Sensing the sour mood in his housemate, Hannibal took a small step closer to Will, to which the latter reacted by taking a rather large one back. "Why are you upset?"

Will ground his teeth. "Why am I upset? Oh, I don't know, Doctor Lecter, _maybe_ it's because of the curveball you threw me last night? Do people normally react to having sex with one another with nonchalance?!"

Hannibal sighed. "Anger does strange things to a man, Will. You, of all people, should know that."

The remark stung. Will's eyes, which had been focused again on his food, flicked to Hannibal's for a moment. "Are you saying-?"

"That my anger made me behave irrationally? Yes. As I recall, yours did too. You were rather intent on telling me, in no uncertain terms, exactly how you felt. You hadn't been before."

Hannibal extended a mug to Will. "I prepared some tea for you this morning, if-"

Will pushed his hand away. "Just...stop. Don't. Don't try to make this anything that it's not."

Hannibal retracted the mug as Will continued.

"I know what you're trying to do. You're trying to butter me up, trying to get me back on you side. It's not going to work, alright? This little game you're playing with me, I'm not going to let you win. Not this time."

"Will!" Hannibal cut across in mild frustration. "Do you not recall a word I said to you last night? '_My feelings for you have never been false'_ were my words, I believe?"

"Yes," grumbled Will, voice thick with skepticism. "What does that matter?"  
"It matters because regardless of my actions, you meant something to me. You were, _are_, important, do you see?"

Will huffed. "Stop it, Hannibal! Just don't!"

There was something entirely new in that statement, and Hannibal could not help but to make a remark on it. "You've never referred to me by my first name before."

"No sense in referring to a man who isn't your therapist by the name 'Doctor,'" reasoned Will, to which Hannibal jerked a consenting nod. A very tense few minutes of utter silence passed between the two men.

At long last, Will spoke. "And what you said," he began, "about acting like something negative happening?"

"Yes?"

"I've...I've never..." Will looked away, unable to say it.

Hannibal cocked a brow. "Are you...should I say _were_ you a-?"

"No, no, not a virgin, no," Will corrected swiftly, visibly very flustered. "I'm trying to say I've never been with...you know...a man."

Hannibal nodded slowly, recalling with a mixture of amusement and chagrin the night in which Will had arrived on his doorstep and announced he'd just kissed Doctor Bloom. Given the natural, carnal way that Will had moved with him, he'd assumed Will had been with a man in the past, at least a handful of times, too.

"Where are you going with this?" Hannibal asked.

"My point is," Will concluded sharply, "it _mattered_. A lot."

With that, he turned firmly on his heel, intent on leaving. Before he could bustle away from the kitchen, Hannibal charged forth and seized Will's wrist. The touch sent a charge up Will's spine; whether angered or flustered, it was impossible to tell.

"Will, stop running off you your little corner. We crossed a line yesterday. And you are right, I cannot pretend it didn't happen. But _you_ can't pretend it didn't happen, either."

Will laughed humorlessly, trying and failing to jerk his wrist away. "That's rich coming from the man who acted as if this whole thing was of absolutely no importance."

Hannibal tightened his grip on Will, and the adjustment allowed him to feel the man's racing pulse. "It was important to you, Will."

Slowly but surely, the bristled younger man grew calmer. "Yeah. Yeah, I know it was."

"It was important to me, too, you know."

Will jerked his eyes down before giving a low, "You don't act like it."

"It's not easy acting like anything matters to me when faced with a man who believes a monster is currently holding his wrist."

Will winced at how perceptive Hannibal was being. "Let me go, please."

"No."

"I said let go! I don't want you manipulating me. I don't want you in my head again!"

Hannibal only held him tighter.

"Your vendetta, while justifiable, is strong," began the doctor. "But it is as we have both said. Something irreversible has been done, Will. We taught Abigail to mind the doors she opened. And we have to mind this one, too."

Will looked at him. "I don't understand."

"We are two men who know each other more intimately than anyone in all this world. We are going to need to coordinate."

Will said nothing, but Hannibal felt him relax in his hold. That tiny bit of trust was more assuring than any bit of progress he'd witnessed in all his years of therapy.

"Coordinate?"

"Quite. Talk to one another. Socialize like adults. Coexist. That is to say...coordinate."

Will knew. He knew it was unwise to trust Hannibal Lecter, after all the doctor had said and done, after all the lies and the agony and the blood...and yet, he wanted so badly to listen, to feel some kind of solace, that he betrayed what he knew to be wise to give a slow nod.

Hannibal slowly released Will, and for the first time in weeks, smiled at him.

Will was happy; he had made his choice. He didn't like how it looked, but then again, he didn't like the way the other option looked either. Both were full of potential distress and turbulence, possible suffering and pain. But only one of them guaranteed answers, promised closure.

He did not smile back at Hannibal.


	7. Baeckeoffe

_In which Will's neurological health reaches a point wherein it cannot be ignored, and Hannibal's confliction over that only makes matters worse._

**Author's Note:** _Happy Sunday! I hope you enjoy the new chapter, and while I don't profit from it, I'd love it if you'd review on it._

* * *

It had become clearer, with every passing day, that the encephalitis was not alleviating on its own.

Hannibal had been a medical doctor, a surgeon, in the days before his psychiatry career. He had known it wasn't probable that the inflammation would die of it's own accord, without any guidance from medication. And yet he found himself both exasperated and surprised when he discovered that Will was still having seizures, still losing time. It was as if the man's very brain had turned on itself, taking him over with illness, ruling the thoughts and the body and the very essence of Will Graham.

And Hannibal _seethed_ in jealously of it.

He had known, for a long time, that he would outlive the former agent. When they'd first met and Hannibal pegged him as a man plagued by his ability to so purely understand others, he presumed that Will would eventually seek drugs as a comforting blanket, keeping him warm on nights that bore icy demons. Those drugs would eat him up alive, swallow him into their world, until he was gone, until he was just like them; a fine dust. But as he grew to know Will, and Will inherently grew to know Hannibal, he realized that one of two causes would see the empath to his grave-his mental health, or Doctor Lecter himself.

He had a certain _fondness_ for Will, if it could rightfully be called that, but still, he was wrestling more and more with the notion that the time to kill Will was coming. The crippling instability that had come with the encephalitis, with which Will had no idea he was burdened with, was reaching a crisis situation. That much Hannibal was certain of. Earlier that evening, a rather unsettling display of that had manifested itself...

_Hannibal was preparing dinner in the kitchen, listening to the rhythmic pounding of blade against cutting board as he chopped up bits of rabbit meat. It had been a long while since he had last served the meat of his victims at his table, largely in part because of Will's residence at his home. With Will there, it was unlikely he could carry out the deed of murder without Will noticing. Even in his state of mental instability, nothing really got past Will Graham. He'd note the change in demeanor, notice the flair and poise with which Hannibal served the meat. It was a risk he could not afford to take. Unfortunately, not taking said risk was having an affect over the man. Where most men experienced a strong libido, a carnal need for primitive thrusts and stiffed gasps and moans and sighs, Hannibal felt a need, a passion, for bloodshed. It satisfied him in the same sense. His libido was, of course, prevalent, but it had always been moderate, unlike the need he had to watch live drain from a body. And so, not being able to carry out this need of his, the composure of the man was starting to unravel._

_As he prepared the rabbit meat, he noted the scent of lavender soap wafting into the room, tinged, oddly, with a certain kind of acidity. Without looking up, he pondered the cause; Will had gone up for a shower about an hour beforehand. Hannibal had presumed Will would not be down for dinner, but he had expected to hear the water shut off long ago. Even now, he could still hear drops falling hard against the marble floor...but where was Will? Well, the arrival of the odd scent seemed to have answered that question. Hannibal looked up from his handiwork to find Will Graham standing in the doorway, eyes dull. He'd lost time, Hannibal recognized that much instantly. His second observation, while much more obvious than the first, had a stronger effect. There were suds clinging to his soaked hair, and his body glistened with water; the man was naked._

_Hannibal reacted in two ways at once. For one, the sight of Will, so hopelessly lost within the confines of his labyrinth skull,triggered in him the need to help Will find himself again...in death. For two, the shining, slick expanse of skin called forth something entirely different in him._

"_Will?" Hannibal questioned, voice failing to maintain its flat state of perfect peace. Mercifully, the empath would not recall any of this. His hand lingered for a few moments on the sharp blade in his hand before he set it down. Will said nothing, totally oblivious to who he was or where he was. Hannibal strode over to Will, placing his shoulders in his hands. He flicked a last backward glance at the blade before deciding against it. _Not now,_ he decided. Hannibal leaned in close, observing the dull glaze in the younger man's eyes. A seizure had undoubtedly occurred recently, and the resulting effect was that Will was currently losing time.. _

"_Follow me," Hannibal whispered into the thin space between the two._

_Taking a hold of his wrist, he guided Will back upstairs and to the bathroom, where he shut off the shower before retrieving a thick, royal purple towel. He coursed it through the wet tendrils of Will's hair before stroking it over the man's face, down his neck, and onto his torso. As he grew closer to the man's hips, Hannibal grew slower and slower in his motions,guiding the cloth over Will with precision bordering on obsession. When at last he had finished drying him, Hannibal stood to face Will and noted that he was still not present in the moment. Absently, he raised a hand and cupped Will's cheek with it, feeling the prickles of his stubble, the sharpness of his jaw. Hannibal moved a finger over the soft slope of his lip, running over the smooth skin with the skilled pad of his thumb..._

Stop.

_His cognitive controls had kicked in, ordering him to take control of himself, and he did. Too much longer in that position and Will would be in real trouble. Either that, or Hannibal would be. Hannibal guided Will across the hall before stepping into the master bedroom and steering Will to the side of the previously made bed. Gathering the listless man into his arms, Hannibal sat Will on the covers and stooped above him for a closer inspection._

_Will's chest was rising and falling erratically, body twitching. He would soon return to full consciousness, certainly, but he had begun seizing again. It occurred to Hannibal, in that instant, that he could effortlessly kill him now. He could end the misery that Will was in. Will would never know what happened, he'd be unconscious, he'd be totally unaware of the final of Hannibal's betrayals..._

_Hannibal raised his hands to Will's shoulders again, preparing to slide them up and tighten them around Will's neck._

Stop.

_Hannibal was embattled to feel the urge to let go. He was also ready to ignore it. _

_In once quick motion, he held Will's neck in his palms, but he did not yet squeeze there. He looked into the face of his captive former patient and thought about the terrible misery Will was in, the crippling wretchedness that Hannibal could so quickly take away..._

Stop.

_Will's windpipe came under the onslaught of two firm hands then. Hannibal was now straddling Will, strangling him beneath his palms, intent on watching the life drain from his lithe body. But as he knelt over Will, he couldn't help but think of the last time he'd been here with the man..._

STOP.

_Hannibal screwed his eyes shut and squeezed harder, trying to banish the thought. He was going to kill Will. He was going to do it because Will was dying anyway. He was going to do it because-_

STOP!

_Unable to resist any longer, Hannibal slowly released Will. Moving his body so that he had both feet on the ground, Hannibal turned and left the man's side as quickly as he could to return to making dinner. He couldn't end Will's life. Not that way. Not today._

Will awoke a while after and was mortified to find that he was naked in Hannibal's room.

"Oh no," he muttered to himself in a panic. "Oh no, no..."

His initial thoughts went towards the romantic. Was it possible that he had lost time, stumbled to Hannibal's room and..._oh God_.

Then again, he thought, why would that be the first instinct in his subconscious? Will bore some physical attraction to Hannibal; that much he had in common with a great deal of people. The man had gorgeous features adorning his handsome face and simple yet elegant body. It was natural that he'd feel some level of attraction to him. But this, this was Hannibal, a man who had slaughtered at least four innocent young women, including one he loved as a daughter. Why would anyone who knew about that still want to get into bed with him? Did _he_ still want to get into bed with him, or even want to be with Hannibal at all?

Will put his head in his hands and groaned.

As he did, he noted that the floor was immaculate, free of any discarded clothing. The bed was in a similar state of neatness. If he'd had sex with Hannibal, there was no way it would be this neat. The wave of relief that washed over Will at that realization was not quite as large as he was expecting. After concluding that he had not fallen back into bed with Hannibal, Will assumed that after his shower, he must have lost time, and in that haze, stumbled into the wrong room by mistake. While far less embarrassing, Will's cheeks still burned in humiliation over the matter. Hurrying to his own room, Will grabbed a set of pajamas and crept down the wooden staircase for dinner, silently hoping as he did every time he made this walk that Hannibal was not in the kitchen. However, when he reached the bottom step, he heard not one voice in the living room but two. Someone was over. He froze where he stood, listening keenly to the two people, trying to discern who the guest was.

"Thank you for agreeing to meet with me on such a short notice," Hannibal said graciously.

"It's not a problem at all," chimed the second voice, decidedly female.

Will bit his lip as relief and terror and despair and hope all washed over him simultaneously. _Alana. _

He wanted so badly to rush out, to embrace her, to thank her for caring for his dogs and to tell her he was alright and to plead her forgiveness for any grief he may have caused her...but he knew, knew for certain, that running to her was not safe for her. Not now, not with what he knew to be true about Hannibal. If the doctor was capable of killing one girl he cared for, he was certainly capable of doing it again.

"I can only assume that this is about Will?" she asked.

"Yes, unfortunately, but we'll get to that later." There was a rustling sound which Will took to mean that Hannibal was taking Alana's coat; she must have just arrived. Will listened closely, sitting on the stair as the scene played out...

Alana smiled gracefully at Hannibal as a thank you and sat down at the kitchen table to a small slice of raspberry tart that Hannibal had prepared for her. Hannibal pulled out his own seat and sat opposite her before asking,

"How are the dogs?"

"The dogs? Oh, fine," Alana remarked in strained cheeriness. "Winston's been keeping me company a lot of late."

From his perched on the stairs, Will winced. "I'm sorry," he whispered painfully. "I'm so sorry..."

Hannibal cut himself a bite of dessert. "Remind me again, which one is Winston?"

"Brown, black spots," she informed him.

"All the dogs are of course keeping me busy."

"And work?" Hannibal wondered politely. "How is work?"

Alana sighed. She had never been able to lie to Hannibal in her life and so there was really no reason to try to do so now. "Difficult," she answered. "Quite trying."

Hannibal was acutely aware of it; the uncomfortableness of her demeanor, the shifting of her posture, the worry in her bright eyes. However, he played it off as if he didn't know exactly what was silently torturing the young woman.

"Something you need to discuss, my dear?"

She huffed. "I don't mean to be rude, but you called late in the evening and said it was urgent that we discuss things. I'm concerned for Will."

"As am I," responded Hannibal simply.

Alana's eyes grew. "Oh God," she breathed, "What's the matter? What's going on?"

"He has nightmares. Very frequent nightmares, where he'll scream and thrash about. He's been having seizures and losing time. And he's still utterly perplexed as to how Abigail Hobbs died."

"So am I."  
Hannibal looked at her with concern. "Are you?"

"Yes." Alana informed him flatly. "I have no idea what happened to Abigail that night. But Will Graham, he's not a murderer. I know he's not."

"Doctor Bloom," Hannibal sighed, and Alana steeled herself; Hannibal only called her by her professional title when they disagreed. "I, too, would like to think Will an innocent man, but the evidence-"

"Jack and the science squad be damned, I know that Will didn't kill Abigail," she cut across tartly. "And if you're convinced that Will is not an innocent man, why let him live under you roof?"

Hannibal prodded at his dessert. "Because the institute thinks him to be mentally not in the right place to know what he was doing when he killed her, and I agree. And so he was recommended to enter the custody of a psychiatrist, one who knew him well enough to be of constant assistance until he became stable enough to live a functioning lifestyle without around-the-clock support from a doctor. He is here because he needs me."

Alana diverted her gaze sadly for a moment before returning her eyes to Hannibal's. "I understand. I'm sorry."

Hannibal offered a small smile. "Never apologize for misunderstanding someone else in your field. It is natural; just because one is a psychiatrist, does not mean they know everything."

"Amen to that," Alana muttered, still visibly put off, "But I don't know how it's possible that he'd have no memory of killing Abigail Hobbs if he did."

"He hallucinated that he killed her," Hannibal reminded her softly. "And then he lost time. It's possible, very possible, that it was no hallucination at all."

"I know he didn't." Alana repeated simply. "Hallucination may have been the word he used, but I'd imagine it was more of a night-terror; a very vivid nightmare."

There was a long silence in which the two renowned doctors took bites of their food and considered the plight of Will Graham. Will, meanwhile, remained on the stair, head aching as he desperately searched his mind for anything more on the death of Abigail Hobbs.

Nothing. As usual.

"You mentioned seizing?" Alana asked tentatively.

"Yes," Hannibal answered in feigned ruefulness. "That, and he frequently loses time, forgets things, has nightmares and visions. It's quite troublesome."

She set her fork down with a decisive clatter. "I think he was right. Something is wrong with him mentally, but there's something else. Something neurological."

"I wouldn't suggest you think the brain scan we had done on him yielded inaccurate results."

"That's precisely what I'm suggesting," Alana returned immediately. "Those machines can't always be trusted. They missed appendicitis in my oldest brother a few years ago. Thank God we went in for a second scan the next week, because if not Aaron wold have died. My point is, I really think we ought to give it another try."

Hannibal's brow furrowed. "I'm not sure what good it would do. I trust the doctor Will saw very much."

"What harm can it do?" she argued. Alana folded he arms over her chest and firmly stated,

"If you don't get him checked out..._I _will."

Hannibal crossed his own strong arms. "Alright. I'll see to it that he is examined and I will report to you the results. But after that, I really must insist that you distance yourself from the matter of Will Graham."

Hannibal became aware of it then, the barely audible sound of muttering in the next room. Alana must not've been able to hear it or she was have certainly said something. Biting down on the boiling anger he felt, Hannibal rose from his chair.

"Pardon me, Alana," he apologized graciously. "I must attend to something."

Swiftly, Hannibal strode out of the room and into the foyer. Before Will realized what was happening, there Hannibal was, kneeling before him.

"Will," he whispered almost menacingly, "You shouldn't be here, eavesdropping like that. Terribly rude."

"You're talking about _me_ in there," Will whispered back. "So it's my business."

"That doesn't mean it's not rude."

Will averted his eyes, hyper-aware of the proximity of his nose and Hannibal's.

"Can I see her?" he asked quietly.

Hannibal did not answer, only continued to stare at Will, watching the man's composure start to weaken.

Will reached out and gripped the cuff of Hannibal's shirt. As embarrassing as it was, Will wanted to badly to be in the presence of a friend that felt he needed it, needed _her._

"Please."

Hannibal stood, and bid Will to do that same. "Very well. Come."

Will entered the room several paces behind Hannibal, extremely cautious that when she saw him she would yell at him, or worse, cry. He couldn't bear it if she was weak. It was a selfish desire, but Will truly needed her to be strong, needed her to support and care for him.

The moment he entered the room, he saw her turn towards him. Her eyes changed; Alana looked overjoyed and traumatized all at once, as if she had just given birth to twins, one alive and one dead. Still, she hurried to him and enveloped him in a hug. Will let his head drop to her shoulder, and he rested it there, letting his troubled eyes close.

"I've been so worried," she said, "Are you alright?"

"No," he answered honestly, gingerly hugging her back. "No, I haven't been."

"Well you're gonna get some help," she assured him. "Hannibal is going to take you in for another scan. And then you are going to get better."

When Will offered nothing in reply, she prodded, "Alright?"

"Okay."

Neither of them noticed, but from his place in the dining room, Hannibal's eyes had taken over an almost reptilian look in his rage. Forcing Will, and himself, to be honest about the encephalitis was not something he was ready and willing to face; perhaps it would make more scales fall from Will's eyes, allow him to see the Ripper before the Ripper planned him to...He didn't look forward to it, but if it got Alana to back off his relationship, whatever it was, with Will, then it was certainly worth it.

The doctor released Will from her hug, and it wasn't until late, when Hannibal was laying in the bed he'd nearly slain his patient in, that he realized that he had almost killed Will Graham because he loved him.


	8. Petit Chou

**Author's Note:** _Happy Sunday! There's a Lithuanian word in this chapter, which means 'Mine.' You'll know it when you see it._

* * *

Hannibal had never known Alana to disappoint him.

The woman had spent years under his tutelage. Her mind and his bore a keenness born of ambition and hard work; indeed, he had brought a sharpness to her intellect which simultaneously refined the edges of his own. Out of all those Hannibal would associate with, Alana Bloom was one of the rare people who held the esteemed doctor's respect. And she had earned it. After all, even after she began her practice and was no longer in need of his help, Hannibal had yet to see his protégée let him down, and her demanding Will's brain be scanned was powerful, if incredibly trying, evidence of that.

She was an intelligent woman. He had known that about her since they'd met. What Hannibal didn't count on was that Alana would be able to identify neurological troubles in someone she hadn't seen in months, and that furthermore, Will would be getting a brain scan. That alone was cause for trouble because once the truth arose, Hannibal would be hard pressed to not have fingers pointed at him for it not being seen the first time.

Then again, he thought to his bemusement, no one really ever blamed him anyway. Nevertheless, the scan was going to be done no matter what he thought about it, and for a dominant as Hannibal was, having his power yanked out from beneath him, by his former student no less, was nothing short of infuriating. Thus, while Alana Bloom had never disappointed Hannibal Lecter, she had managed to truly anger him. And all things considered, that was just as dangerous.

Will was on the cusp of learning that his brain was ridden with a severe case of encephalitis. In the elegant web of cunning intricacies that Hannibal had woven in his life, there were occasional bumps and snags that caught in it like fleas. Logically, then, the offending circumstances were removed. But this, this was different. This was another spider in the web, one who was not immune to him but could fight back with the prowess of an equal. This was challenging, this was dangerous. This was the matter of Special Agent Graham.

Hannibal was attached to Will, that much was something he'd come to accept. But the hungering, the insatiable desire to consume Will in all the ways he could, that was a craving the doctor had never had before. A taste for instability. For ownership. For domination. For Will Graham.

But a brain scan, a brain scan made that impossible. Once Will discovered the truth about what was happening to him, he'd be hospitalized. He'd be treated. It would be much more difficult to coax Will into succumbing to him than it was now. Perhaps he'd lose him altogether, and the prospect of that was unacceptable; Hannibal had known from very early on that the only termination of their relationship would come by Hannibal destroying him.

It was with that in mind that Hannibal strode up to Will's room that morning to wake him. He was scheduled for a scan in a bit over an hour, and as livid as it made Hannibal, it needed to be done. But as he pulled the door open, he discovered Will to be sleeping still.

"Will," Hannibal called softly from the doorjamb. "Come down for breakfast. You've got a visit to the hospital to attend this morning."

No sign of wakefulness. For a fleeting moment, concern for Will's life fleeted across the cannibal's mind. Holding his breath a moment so as to better hear the sounds in the room, Hannibal listened intently and discovered that Will was indeed breathing. Moving the rest of the distance across the room, Hannibal sat on the very edge of the bed and stared down at Will. His face bore a tranquility which Hannibal had never seen etched in the arcs and lines of the younger man's face. This must have been his first dreamless night of sleep in months. He extended a hand to gently shake Will by the shoulder, and not for the first time that day, thought about snapping his neck.

_No_, he decided. _Dangerous to keep him around, even more dangerous to remove him. For now, at least._

As he stirred Will by the shoulder, his words to him were uttered more gently than he'd have normally done; whether out of affection for the man or just in the attempt to reconcile with him to turn him back on his side, it was impossible to tell.

"Wake up," he whispered, "We've got to get going, and there's a bit of a drive for us to get there. Punctuality has no concern for the afflicted."

Slowly, Will's eyes fluttered open. As his consciousness was blearily restored, the empath became aware of a splintering headache pounding through his tired skull. Though he'd slept the whole night without any vision that haunted him, he still felt as though he hadn't rested at all. He was only vaguely aware that there was a man stooped over his body. A warm hand on his shoulder. Right then, he had no idea who it was providing the comforting touch, and frankly, didn't particularly care. Will curled his body towards the being and rested his head against the firm plane of his leg before muttering something along the lines of "No," and closing his eyes again.

Hannibal, while a bit taken aback, said nothing. His hand, which had rested on the curve of Will's shoulder, slid down from it's perch to land at the base of the younger man's neck. It stayed there for a long moment of hesitation.

_Yes, _he decided. _Now. _But just as he made affirmative his choice, he found his hand sliding further, landing on the top of Will's head. _No, _he thought to himself as he left the crook of Will's neck be for the time being. _Too dangerous. _Alana wasn't stupid. If Will failed to show up for his appointment today, she'd have no one to blame but Hannibal, particularly if the former's reason for truancy was, quite literally, at the hands of Hannibal. So, rather than cut off the air from Will's lungs, the doctor ran his digits through the dark curls atop his head, patiently waiting for him to stir again.

The touch was welcome and soothing; the rhythmic carding of fingers through his hair bringing a bit of much-needed comfort. However, just as Will was about to drop back off again, it dawned on him like a violent earthquake exactly where he lay and what that meant.

Lurching off Hannibal's thigh in mortified horror, Will attempted to sit bolt upright in bed but slipped against his sheets and tumbled back down on his back with a fumbling crash against the wooden headboard.

Hannibal bit back on the urge to chuckle. "Good morning, Will."

"Hannibal," Will returned, face boiling, tongue slurring in the search for the appropriate words. "Hannibal, I'm sorry, I-"

"Will," Hannibal cut across, peeling back the sheets of the man in question, only furthering his embarrassment. "We've got an appointment to get you to."

Will knitted his brow, perplexed. "But I...you...I had my-and you had your-"

"Will." Hannibal interrupted again, "Now is not the time."

A shuddering sigh escaped the former agent's lips in resignation as he swung his bony legs over the side of the bed. Hannibal did the same, and the two sat like that in silence.

How long had it been since someone made him _blush_? He was a grown man, for Christ's sake. No one, let alone Hannibal Lecter, should have illicited the sort of reaction in him. Will mistrusted his former therapist with very good reason. But the touches, the _touches_. He wanted the touches. He wanted the hands in his hair, both as a comfort and as something less innocent. The thought was not only unusual but incredibly disturbing. Wanting something carnal with a man so, well, _carnal_, that was certainly cause for alarm. There was an expression his father had used before, when Will was in pursuit of a girl from school they both knew to be out of his leauge-what was it? "This will only end in tears,"? Right. But in this case, he feared, blood.

"Will," Hannibal repeated for the third time, interrupting Will's thought. Now he was audibly impatient.

"I really must insist you get ready."

A bit over an hour later, Hannibal and Will were in the hospital together. Again. It struck Hannibal as bizarre how many times the two found themselves together in medical rooms like this one. Presently, Will was tucked in the crisp folds of the bedsheets, a mint green gown pooling around his thin frame. Hannibal stood in the corner of the room, watching over him intently. The test was mere moments from transpiring, and the doctor once again began to mull over the consequences of that. What was to become of Will when he was diagnosed? Would he blame him for it, or worse, involve Alana in that blaming? He could convince Will of his shock and of his innocence, but if Will got to Doctor Bloom before he did, there was no way he could convince her, too. Her life would be in mortal danger if Will confided in her. And Hannibal didn't want to kill Alana, not yet. She fell into the odd category of human life worthy of living but not worthy of his friendship. Of course he gave the latter to her, but he only vaguely meant it. His connection to Alana was void of any affection for the woman at all. He merely thought her worth his attention. But should she stand in his way of Will Graham, that connection would be cut.

Permanently.

As the doctors wheeled Will away, Hannibal took a seat in the room formerly occupied by the man to wait. As he sat, his mind turned once again to the life of his friend.

Will belonged to Hannibal Lecter. He was his. The man was, slowly but surely, once again becoming reliant on the cannibal. After finding out that Hannibal would be taking him in for a brain scan, Will had slowly come to terms with the fact that maybe, just maybe, Hannibal wanted the best for him. Perhaps he wanted him to heal. Perhaps he wanted _them _to heal. Or maybe it was a combination of both. No matter what it was, Will began to allow himself to be near Hannibal again. While he still held a concern for his well-being when alone in a room with him, the fiery anger that had burned in the pit of his belly towards Hannibal had been mollified into hot, yet dying, embers. Hannibal could tell that Will was starting to soften his resolve against him, too; there had been an evening that week where, for the first time, they had a meal together. And the more Hannibal could get Will to do for him, the further out of his shell he could coax him, the more Hannibal hungered to make Will his. His _what_, he had no label for what he wanted Will to be. All the renowned psychiatrist wanted Will to be was his and only his. Hannibal wanted Will to want no one else, as a lover or as a friend. He wanted him to want no one else's companionship at all. Hannibal wanted him to think of no one else, to be entirely devoted to him instead. To want nothing else but the curves and lines of Hannibal's body. To devote himself so blindly to the doctor that he'd know for a fact that his Love was the Chesapeake Ripper and would adore that about him, too. Hannibal wanted _him_.

It was nearly half an hour before Will was returned to the room, and the nurse who returned them curtly informed Hannibal that the results would arrive as quickly as they could, before leaving the two alone together again.

With a needle running medication into his bloodstream stuck in his arm, Will surveyed the gloomy room sullenly before suddenly announcing,

"'M scared."

A bit surprised that Will had spoken to him at all, Hannibal slowly turned to face Will before striding over to his bedside slowly.

"It is natural," he said, pulling out a chair, "to be afraid."

A few moments of silence passed in which Hannibal took a seat next to Will and removed his suitcoat to reveal a navy collared shirt beneath a charcoal vest.

"Don't tell Alana."

Hannibal raised an eyebrow. "I've got to relay the results of the scan to her, Will, I-"

"No no no," Will murmured, running an exhausted hand through his hair. "I meant, don't tell her that I'm scared."

"She's your friend Will, and atop that, a very reputable doctor," Hannibal reasoned. "Why hide your feelings over this matter from her, particularly when you've every reason to have them?"

Will sighed through his nose. "She'll get worried."

"Don't you think she's already worried?" Hannibal reasoned.

"Don't _you_ think I feel guilty about that?"

Hannibal bobbed his head slowly, offering no reply.

A few minutes passed before the nurse returned to the room. The air about her was professional and yet sympathetic; Will knew that energy, because Alana carried it around him, too.

"Mr. Graham," she began soberly. She began to unlock Will's bed, making it evident that she was about to whisk him away again. Noting this, Hannibal rose to his feet to accompany her.

"Mr. Graham, you'll be reporting to the Brain Care wing of the hospital immediately. We've found severe acute encephalitis in your frontal lobe and a moderate case in your central lobe."

Will looked at her strangely. "What...what does...?"

"Encephalitis is an inflammation of the brain tissue," she explained as she pushed Will's bed away from the wall. "It's caused by a bacterial infection in the brain. You'll be treated with powerful antibiotics and seizure treatment, and assuming that is successful, your brain shouldn't suffer any permanent damage."

With a slow, exhausted groan, Will rested his head against the downy slope of his propped pillows to close his eyes, succumbing to the narcotic aspect of the pain medication he was on.

When he woke several hours later, the room was dimly lit and there were several IV's in his arms. His vision took several moments to adjust; the edges of his conscious were blurred as usual upon his wakefulness. Still, he became slowly aware of slow, gentle breathing at his side, and the moment his vision cleared, he realized that Hannibal was seated beside him, and moreover, that he was sleeping there. There was a note present on the small bedside table for Will, the elegant scrawl of Hannibal Lecter's on it.

"_William,_

_I hope you don't mind my spending the night here. I phoned Doctor Bloom to inform her of your diagnosis. She came to visit you, but you were at peace and we lacked the heart to disturb you._

_We are, of course, concerned about your health. No one more so than me. _

_Till tomorrow,_

_H. Lecter."_

Will skimmed his fingers over the letter. What did that mean, 'No one more so than me?' Was it possible, at all possible, that perhaps Hannibal truly wished to reconcile with him? He longed for the man's companionship certainly, but he feared it, too. He knew he had no reason to trust the man who murdered Abigail Hobbs, and potentially, many others. He knew that. But whether it was the encephalitis or just the simple loneliness within his battered heart, he very much wanted to.

Perhaps Hannibal had sensed Will's being awake, for he, too, began to stir.

"Good evening, Will."

Will scooted himself up in his bed. "What time is it?"

Hannibal flicked his gaze to his watch. "Nearly midnight."

Will nodded. "You mentioned that Alana was here?"  
"Yes."

"Did she...how did she..?"  
Hannibal regarded him mildly. "She reacted as one would expect. She is concerned for you but she is grateful that you've been diagnosed with something that's treatable."

Will nodded again.

"How are you feeling, Will?"

Will offered a sad little smile. "Like I'm drowning."

Suddenly Hannibal reached up to cup Will's forehead in his palm. Instinctively Will attempted to back away from the touch, heart rate accelerating in alarm.

"What're you-?!"

"Sssh," Hannibal soothed. "You're safe now."

Puzzled by that remark, Will froze in place for a moment, brain desperately trying to analyze it for meaning, but after a moment of searching with no reward, he gave in to his seemingly everlasting fatigue and leaned into the touch to allow Hannibal to check him for fever.

"Hmm," Hannibal noted, drawning his hand away before wiping the sweat from Will's forehead onto the blankets. "Your fever is down but still quite high, Will."

The younger man receded into the pillows again.

"About this morning," Will began nervously, "I'm sorry, I was exhausted and hurting and you were-"  
"Don't apologize," Hannibal chastised gently. He'd had a reply in mind for the apology, but whatever it was it seemed to have slipped from his mind at the memory of Will's head on his leg. "It's...alright," he finally offered.

A small sigh escaped Will, which Hannibal took to mean was the end of the discussion.

"Rest, Will," he suggested. "You could use the sleep."  
And as Will drifted back in to rest, Hannibal poured over the day's events. Mercifully, neither Will nor Alana seemed to suspect a thing. In fact, Alana had comforted him, saying that it must have been awful to have "blamed oneself for so long for the traumas of a patient that were beyond what we are licensed to heal."

Still, while they remained in the dark for now, Hannibal was still about to be put in charge of the well-being of a man who would be emotionally and physically dependent on him for support as he healed from the encephalitis.

And then it dawned on him.

With Will reliant on him to heal, maybe, just maybe, he could get Will back on his side again. Permanently this time. Will would become his, needing and wanting no one but Hannibal. _Yes_, Hannibal simpered to himself. _Perfect. _He praised himself for having the insight of not killing Will before.

Curling his fingers around Will's wrist, he leaned over to the man who was now sleeping deeply and whispered into his ear,

"Maniškis."

Hannibal slowly delivered a bite to Will's ear, tasting for the second time the flavor of Will's skin, flitting his tongue over him, _marking_ him.

Will was, after all, his.


End file.
